Hundred Days Till the End
by ScarletSprings
Summary: Clarke Griffin is determined for the human race survive the second coming of nuclear fall out even if she does not. Sequel to "There Was No Other Way". Second chance/time travel fic.
1. Just Breathe

AN: A slow start, I think, but I want to do a little time skipping.

 **Hundred Days till the End**

 _Day 100, continued, Polis, Evening_

With both Nathan and Charlotte tended to, and the rest of Skaikru largely unharmed, Clarke cleaned up. Washing with left-over, and now cold, water, she hurried out of her now stained clothes. At Charlotte's hopeful encouragement, she slipped into the gleaming golden dress with a sigh. Her little apprentice never asked about the scars, and by now her and Nathan both had seen them many times. But standing in front of the murky, old mirror, Clarke's eyes were locked on them. There was no way that wouldn't draw more attention than she wanted. With a grimace, she dug through the clothes provided by Lexa until she found something that might could pass. Thinner than could be considered practical for riding, or even walking much, and too tight to do much of anything in, the gleaming black leather leggings were something she'd overlooked till now as frivolous. And truly, they were. But sliding them on, with difficulty, Clarke assessed how they looked in the mirror, and decided it would work. The gorgeous gown, only one she'd ever worn, did not have to be completely abandoned.

"You sure you don't want to go downstairs? Costia's aunt has turned the entire ground floor into an infirmary rather than have everyone carried to the center." urged Clarke, lingering in the doorway.

Rolling his eyes, Nathan shook his head.

"I've finally got rid of my dad. Go. I just want to sleep for a week. It's just a scratch, seriously." announced the boy in her bed grouchily.

"I'll stay." piped in Charlotte from the sitting area. The young second was now dressed in clean leggings, and an overly large tunic that let the thick, tan bandages over her shoulder peek out. Her feet were up on the table near her still steaming mug of tea, and she was snuggled down with a thick wool blanket, looking rather more content than seemed possible after such a night.

Throwing a smile towards the younger girl, Clarke backed down.

"Just got to make an appearance, alright? Then I'm coming right back up." assured the weary leader, trying, and falling just short of, sounding confident in that plan.

A last reluctant glance at them both, she turned to leave.

"Look, stay by Wells or Blake. Either of them." blurted out Nathan.

Without looking back, she titled her head slightly to the side as she considered his words.

"Surely we've met our quota for disaster till sunrise at least." joked Clarke halfheartedly.

Night had fully set- frigidly cold, though few seemed to notice. There was singing in the market square, and dancing in the streets. Those rough flutes that Rock Line brought, high and pretty. So many different drums from the other clans, all sizes and shapes, scattered here and there. Wine ordered by Heda flowed freely from massive, heavy barrels. Dozens of odd tables, set together, covered in food- dripping, roasted meats smelling of rosemary and thyme, butter drenched breads still warm, sweet fruits drizzled with honey...

Descending from the blood soaked tower, where the injured and the dead alike had been carried from Lexa's hall, down into the open air celebration was enough to make Clarke's head spin from disorientation. The injured were being tended to by a swarm of healers, but Clarke wouldn't be able to relax until she was able to rejoin the efforts. Guards bellowed for quiet, until most everyone was staring at the foot of the tower, where Heda stood. Lexa's smirk had turned smug in the seconds she'd had to observe her people's good spirits, and she raised her arms proudly.

"We welcome the fourteenth clan!"

The people's bated breathe seemed to expel as one in a roar of thrill- boisterous from the wine, well fed at Lexa's command, they met the news eagerly.

Grateful, at least, that grounders weren't given to the long speeches the Ark had boasted, Clarke tried to melt off into the crowd once Lexa had finished her announcement. Even as she wound throuh the crowd, though, she felt as if she could still feel her mother's eyes- horrified, heartbroken, furious, upon her, heavy as standing with the cross-hairs of a rifle's sight.

"We raised them to be this way." murmured Marcus Kane.

Abby watched her daughter, her pride and joy, sashay through the crowds of violent, primitive people, seemingly at ease, as if this was simply a gathering up on the Ark. She missed the moment, though, when Clarke circled around, and hurried back into the tower.

 _100 days till the End_

After the ugly turn at breakfast, her mother with tears washing her face even as she raged ending the meal before Clarke had managed to get more than two bites in, Clarke seemed to trip over an Arkadian no matter where she went.

Even the guards' training yards were not a safe refuge. The entire lot of Arkadians uncertainly appeared, looking rather lost, as Clarke had sat on the ground, a safe distance back, as her people sparred with Lexa's. To the far left, Wells was calmly sparring with the woman, Suri, that Lexa had introduced Clarke to only days before. To the right, Bellamy was more intensely facing a Sandakru man that Clarke thought she'd heard someone call Jorum. Beyond them, Harper was cheerfully sparring with Zavian of Glowing Forest, while Monroe was aggressively working with a Rock Line guard Clarke didn't know even by sight, and she didn't recognize Lincoln's partner either.

Directly in front of her, though, after it had taken a moment to recognize him with dirt obscuring his prominent scar, Octavia's opponent was Wade of Blue Cliffs.

The Arkadians, the others hesitantly following the most curious, Marcus Kane, formed a huddled row near Clarke. Jaha's eyes were locked to his son, but the others were hastily sweeping the yard with wary disdain on their faces.

The dark haired nightblood was not sheathing her claws- blood, only red, was already smearing across them both- his face, her hands...

"It's only been three months since you landed." whispered Kane to Clarke, looking quickly from the sparring match that was swiftly progressing into an actual fight, to the blonde girl at his side, and back again.

Though the blonde knew that Octavia had already gone two rounds with others this morning, she was beating the tall, broad grounder with a vicious energy that belied the previous exertions.

"Octavia is not the girl under the floor anymore, or the only surviving second-born from the Ark. Not even just our ambassador. That's Skaikru's champion there."

That week, with her mother in the tower, Clarke found reasons not to be anywhere around it. This meant avoiding her own people, too, but that wasn't enough to change her mind. Out in the cold sunlight of the city, she wandered. Breathing in the city air- mingled scents of fish cooking, rust, and sweat, and so much else she couldn't identify Even this, she would miss, during their time under the ground. At all times, just beyond her elbow, trod a shadow. This week, it was Caliban, for Nathan and Charlotte were both, grudgingly, resting, and the rest all occupied with actually important activities, unlike her. She accomplished nothing, in fact. At least, the older Trikru man was a mostly quiet presence. Apart from helpful, sudden comments on which streets to avoid, or spots she might like to see, he allowed her to drift, both her mind, and her feet. Memories of before, and risks still to be dealt with, rose and fell from her thoughts with an oddly detached sense...

Simply exploring a city that was soon to fall to ruins. It was like, Clarke mused as she slowly nibbled on a bit of warm cheese-crusted bread that Caliban had procured from the bakery they stood in front of, being in Rome despite knowing it would soon burn. The cluttered, dirty streets somehow seemed so much more.. alive.

 _94 days till the end_

A knock sounded on her door, and Clarke out called for the person to enter.

Stiffly, Caliban opened the door, but did not enter, remaining in the doorway instead.

"The Arkadian party has left Polis, with a guide to assist them back to their settlement." spoke the gruff man.

"Thank you for letting me know." replied the sky princess with a brief smile.

"Will you return to your camp now?" asked Caliban shortly.

Clarke crossed the room to stand closer to him.

"Tomorrow, I guess. Heda wants to meet today, so I doubt we'd have time to make it home after."

With a short nod, he retreated from her room. The solitude left Clarke to muse, once again, on the surprising visit from Indra late the night before.

Bluntly, hardly closing the door behind herself after being admitted, and utterly ignoring Nathan where he sat, still eating a late dinner, the commander's most trusted general had informed Clarke that the Trikru warrior, nearer Indra's age than Clarke's, would pursue her, if she decided to allow him to do so. Admittedly, though Titus had already revealed this, Clarke wasn't sure if she was more embarrassed at the topic that she would have liked to forget, or that _Indra_ had brought it up. The fierce warrior, one of the greatest she knew, was hardly the person she would have expected a discussion of... romantic variety with. Then again Indra did have a daughter only a little older than Clarke, so perhaps it shouldn't be as shocking.

Flushing, and cursing the nightblood that made it more obvious than her fair skin already would, Clarke had awkwardly said she would consider the issue. With a smirk at the skai prisa's embarrassment, Indra had silently nodded before letting the subject end. Curious if Lexa had known about this, but unwilling to ask, Clarke tried to push the situation out of her head.

 _93 days till the end_

As Clarke walked out of room, leaving Nathan still dressing in the candlelight, on her way to meet Caliban out front of the tower, a sharp call of her name made her pause.

Monty was coming around the corner, waving at her, and she stopped to smile at him sleepily.

"I'm glad I caught you!" he blurted out as soon as he drew close enough to talk.

When she waited for him to continue, he frowned.

"We've missed you this week." admitted her friend, more quietly than before.

She grimaced apologetically, shifting restlessly at the nudge of guilt.

"Sorry, it... was just a bit much. Having my mom here."

Frowning again, though more in concern this time, Monty bit his lip, now uncertain if he wanted to bother her with this... but finally drawing up the nerve...

"Harper wants me to learn how to do tattoos." blurted out Monty, wide-eyed.

Clarke titled her head, unsure of what she was supposed to say about that random bit of information being thrown at her so early in the morning.

"Because the grounders do it." added the Argo boy desperately.

"Uhhh..." hesitated Clarke.

"You could, like, say, that Skaikru doesn't do that. I mean, not all the clans do. Like Azgeda, right?"

Ruffling her brows, she frowned at him.

"Well, I mean, you're right, but Azgeda does facial scarification instead, so I'm not sure that's a... better... example?"

He grimaced.

"Still. You could ban it." insisted the younger Skaikru imploringly.

She shook her head. "You don't have to learn how, but I'm not just going to forbid it. They probably wouldn't listen anyway, and they'd be pissed that I tried to stop them."

His shoulders slumped in disappointment, so she reached over to hug him.

"I'll be back in a few days, ok? I just want to make the ride with Bellamy, and Monroe." she assured him before she took her leave.


	2. The Days That Bind Us

**The Days That Bind Us**

Title from the song Bad Blood by Bastille

Life has been crazier than normal lately. Sorry for the delay. Last weekend, I decided I would post Chapter 2 by Thursday 10/18/18, NO MATTER WHAT. Sooo... here it is.

 _93 Days to the End con't_

 _Polis_

Through the hallways, into the lift, and out into the grim, murky predawn outside, Monty followed Clarke. With her slumped shoulders and heavy eyes, she didn't seem to notice. It wasn't like her to show her weariness so frankly. Standing out of the way, the younger delinquent watched as she slung her shoulder bag over the rough saddle, before throwing herself up in the hasty, awkward way that was all determination, rather than finesse.

Shifting about restlessly, she glared around, from where the Trikru men were already sitting stiffly upon their own horses, to the tower's entrance, from which neither Bellamy nor Monroe had emerged yet. She spotted him then, summoning up a fond smile, and short wave, which he returned shyly.

A yawn escaped her, and after, she kept her eyes closed, as if resting even perched on her little mare.

It was too early, probably, to go knocking on the healers' center door. When she looked away again, turning halfway around in her saddle to dig through her bag, Monty wandered away, deep in thought.

 _Polis_

The commander looked over the assembly critically. She had ordered the fourteen chairs to make a tight half-circle, just before her dais. Never before had them come together in such closeness. The newcomers were most likely unaware of this, but Octavia kom Skaikru, seated between Indra kom Trikru and Uzac kom Broadleaf, already knew what was coming. The sky girl looked bored and restless, her gaze swooping around the otherwise empty room. Several seats away on the other side of the demi-lune, David kom Arkadia, with creased brow, hands gripping the armrests unconsciously, on his own in diplomatic matters for the first time, as the Skaikru advisers had held his hand until now. In the middle, the farthest chair from her throne, sat the empty Azgeda seat.

Both Skaikru and Arkadia had been stripped of their communicative devices, and from now until they were safely ensconced within the sanctuaries, the ambassadors would be under heavy watch.

At her side, stood the flame-keeper, as always, but she had intended for Wanheda to take the opposite position, for she too, as the commander, as the flame-keeper, was above a mere clan. Yet Clarke had rushed from the city before the morning had even truly began, her guards informed her. She should be here.

"Today, we come together, for the first time, to contemplate the end of our world, and the beginning of a new era." announced Lexa slowly, meeting each of their eyes in turn as she spoke.

 _On the way to Hundred Camp_

The farther they got from Polis, the more Bellamy relaxed. She had not started the ride in a good mood to begin with, and yet the grumpier Monroe became. By the time they'd remounted after a brief break mid-way, Clarke was wearily annoyed with herself that she hadn't suggested the gunner stay back in Polis. Putting a day's distance between the angry girl and oblivious Bellamy would have been the smarter thing.

Stomach churning unpleasantly, Clarke squirmed in her saddle. Again.

"Hey Bellamy? Clarke?" the radio crackled to life. Wick's voice came through, tight, and tense, and chills spread down their spines.

"Got a bit of a-" there was a broken pause -"development here."

None of the riders could make out much sense of the background noise, but Octavia's sharp, irritated tones came through. Not the actual words she was barking out, however.

"We're here," answered Bellamy loudly, even as he tried to stop his horse one-handed, and uncertain.

"Go ahead, Wick," - Clarke.

She leaned in closer, edging her mare next to Bellamy's. Caliban held up a hand to his men, and they stopped, a few feet back. Giving the illusion of privacy at least.

"The commander is confiscating our radios." blurted their engineer. "Due to-"

"Which she would have explained if you had been present for today's meetings," cut in Octavia- hissing the words close to the radio.

Clarke grimaced, and Monroe muttered with a smirk about the great wanheda playing hooky. Out of the loop, Bellamy just raised his brows.

"How'd it go?" asked Clarke.

A shudder crashed over her at the frustrated huff Octavia expelled.

"Not great. Could've been worse." - O

"What does that mean, O?" demanded Bellamy, but the radio went dead.

Then Wick came back. "We can radio every night, and if there's an emergency. Everything's fine. Watch your six."

Silence again, till Octavia came back.

"Lincoln and I are going with the Floukru ambassador. Leaving tomorrow. Should be back in about a week."

With cautions and farewells quickly exchanged, Bellamy grimly slid the radio back onto his belt. Monroe grumbled about Harper, and Clarke tried to slow her heartbeat after the rush of adrenaline. She looked back towards their Trikru escorts with a strained smile and nod. At their acquiescence, she nudged her firmly with her heels to set them back into motion at a smooth run. The overcast grey day seemed all the more dreary now, thought Clarke. Every rustle from the evergreen trees, every voice from people unseen, prickled at the trio of Skaikru as they continued through the paths toward home.

When the surroundings began to hint at home, Bellamy's face eased, and his shoulders fell loose. By the time they hit the thick woods where they had to slow to a walk, knowing Hundred Camp was only a half-hour further, he was grinning as he kept his head on a swivel. Conversely, Monroe's mouth bunched tighter into a pout, and her gaze fixed firmly away from him. Instead, she rode at Clarke's side, before falling in behind her once the paths narrowed. Leaving Bellamy to the silent, wary company of the Trikru.

 _Polis, Mid-Morning_

"Um, Miss? Err, Healer?" stammered Monty, flushing and frowning as he tried to think of the most respectful way to address the grounder in front of him.

Logically, he knew she was only about three years older than him, according to Miller, at least. But there was no way to think at the fierce set of her bare shoulders, covered in spirals of leaves inked into her dark skin, nor the impatient furrow in her brows, or the clenched jaw... and think "just another kid, like me."

"My name is Costia kom Trikru." gritted out the older teenager. "And I am a healer's second." she added tightly, glaring at the Skaikru boy.

Looking anywhere but at her bright, flashing eyes, Monty nodded urgently.

"Right. Yes. Of course." he agreed.

He stood there, blocking the doorway, and quiet, looking around what he could see of the room around her.

"Do you need a healer?" asked Costia flatly.

Monty's gaze snapped back to hers.

"Uhhh- well, yes, I mean, not need, per say, but I am hoping to ask some questions. I could, um, make an appointment?" he rambled uncertainty.

Her brows rose, and after a moment, she sighed.

"Why?"

"Harper, my, uh, girlfriend, wants a tattoo. But she wants me to do it. And I've never done one. Or seen it done. We didn't do that in space. I mean, total waste of resources. Of course, not down here. But, yea. And I heard that healers do tattoos, so I don't even know if I can learn, but umm.."

"You want to be trained in marking skin?" asked the young healer's apprentice impatiently.

"Want is perhaps a strong word for it, but I would appreciate it... I mean, Harper really wants me to be the one who does it even though I have the artistic skill of a snail, and Monroe wants one too..."

"If you do not want to learn, then why do you ask?" bit out Costia, inching backwards, preparing to slam the heavy, creaking door shut in his face.

He noticed, and flushed, shifting his feet, unsure whether to step forwards, blocking it fully, or get out of the way.

"She wants me to. And Harper's never really asked me for anything, you know? Besides to stop hogging the pillows, I mean." blurted out Monty quickly.

Costia had already begun to swing shut the door, but at the last moment, caught it, and stood there, with her hand gripping the side of it, and it shut enough it was between them.

She sighed, again.

"Alright." she muttered, before she even reopened the door.

With narrowed eyes, and her teeth still gritted, Costia sharply ushered him inside the healers' center, shutting the door roughly behind him.

"You are, at least, sixteen years of age, I assume?" demanded the young healer's apprentice, before turning away instead of waiting for his answer.

"Um, yes, of course. Actually, I turned seventeen, a few weeks ago."

With a huff that must have meant as accepting his answer, she lead him through the maze of the sunlight only-lit building, upstairs, to one of the smaller rooms.

"Not only healers perform markings. It is a skill so simple a child could learn, but they are not supposed to be taught, not marked, before they'd survived their first sixteen years."

 _Past Nightfall_

"Open the gates! It's Bellamy, and Clarke, and Monroe!" called the kid on watch as soon as they came into the light of his torch.

As they creakily opened, Monroe darted in the moment there was space enough. The reins of her horse dropped upon the ground, for Bellamy to pick up wearily. Avoiding watching that as much as she could help, Clarke also hurried off her own horse, loosening the girth as soon as her feet hit the ground. It was harder to look the gruff bear of a warrior in the eye now, so Clarke said farewells quickly, with her eyes mostly on her sweaty, still warm horse. Likewise, Bellamy was caring for each of the geldings in turn, loosening the saddles, and easing the bags down off their backs.

"Two days," agreed Caliban, then leading his men off into the dark forest towards Ton DC.

With the gate held open, Sterling and Fox came hustling out, with a few of the younger boys following close behind, elbowing each other for position. Since caring for the horses whenever needed meant getting turns to take them out for rides in the woods when they weren't needed, it was a popular chore for the bravest kids. Monroe had groaned that making the trip to Polis and back would cure them of it though.

With Bellamy handing the pair over to Fox, and an eager, hardworking fourteen year old from the camp crew, Kade, Clarke was fairly sure, she handed her own reins over to Sterling. Knowing he'd walk the valuable animal well for a slow cool down before getting her settled for the night, she could relax herself.

Together, with their bags slung over their shoulders, Clarke and Bellamy walked tiredly into camp. Exhausted for the hard ride, but happy to be home, Clarke was grinning as she took in the mellow chaos of the camp, interrupted during dinner. As they came fully into the camp, making the corner, the smile fell over her face, and Bellamy stiffened up so fast he became a statue at her side.

Faces grim, Atom with his shoulders squared, and Jasper fidgeting with something in his hands, the pair waited with what could only be bad news.

"Dinner's on." offered Jasper, a sheepish grin awkward on his face, as if they wouldn't notice the hundred all crowded around the fire with their rough, wood carved bowls, sharing roasted deer, and berries, and onions, as usual, turning to greet them somberly.

Atom sighed.

"I'm sorry." he offered first.

The boy fell silent a long, drawn out moment, as he struggled to find the words.

She made herself eat, at Bellamy's nagging and his arm around her shoulder steering her to a log to sit on. A bowl of rations choked down, and she slunk out, avoiding meeting anyone's eyes, to the graveyard. Their dead, lining the wall, contained a fresh grave. At this rate... Already sitting there, was another girl. Clarke lowered her head guilty, walking slowly around till she stood over both Mary and the grave that held Derek.

"I'm sorry." murmured Clarke. Hesitantly, she grabbed the other girl's hand, trying to offer something close to comfort.

Sniffling, then Mary looked up, exposing the silvery tear tracks on her face in the dim light, what little reached them from the torches on the wall.

"We don't even know what happened," the Farm Station girl forced out, her voice thick and hoarse from crying.

After walking Mary back into the dropship for the night, the young mom-to-be exhausted by the crying jags on top of everything else, Clarke returned back to stillness of the dark open space beyond the tight confines of the camp's walls. The forest was never truly silent- there was always the crickets, if nothing else at night. It was close enough for her though, especially after Polis, where even at midnight, people were moving around, patrolling, preparing for the next day, tending to livestock who'd kept them up for one reason or another...

Sitting with her back against a tree, facing out away from camp, just outside the furthest reaches of the watcher's torches up on the wall... this is where Bellamy found Clarke again.

"C'mon, you shouldn't be back out here alone." grumbled the camp leader.

Her face titled up at him with raised brows, and she shrugged half-heartedly.

"Not like Azgeda could mobilize their army already. With our luck, their entire army will show the day before we try to move into the bunkers." muttered the blonde.

Sighing, he stepped over her stretched out legs to sink down on the other side of her, sharing the tree to lean against.

"We've got a problem, Princess."

Painfully quiet, and deathly serious, Bellamy's voice cut through the relief of coming home.

"There's always another problem waiting." thought Clarke, but she only grunted out an acknowledgment.

"I hung around the fire a while... nobody's happy, and isn't not all about the summit, and Derek." said Bellamy.

Procrastinating, he shifted a bit around, nudging his shoulder more into hers as he tried in vain to get comfortable. The bark biting into his back through the layers of his jacket and shirts. Staying silent, with her gaze fixed straight ahead, into the nothingness of the dark forest, where the trees were thick enough to hardly allow any moonlight down, Clarke waited.

"They um, the kids..." began the one-time guard cadet, seeming to stumble over his words, rarely a problem for a man that was such a brilliant orator.

"What's wrong, Bell?" pushed Clarke tiredly, ready for her bed, and hoping whatever Bellamy had to say wasn't going to stand between her and that familiar pile of furs for too long.

"Some of them, they're... uhhh. They're dreaming. About dying. Um, really specific ways of dying."

The familiar walls and trees of their home shifted, weaving around her, and Clarke would have dropped to the ground if not for Bellamy lunging forwards to grab her- pulling her to his chest.

"No!" she denied desperately, but he shook his head, she felt it as his chin brushed over her hair.

"Why? Why now?" whispered Clarke, still clinging to him frantically. "Why now!"

Holding her tightly, without even room for a breathe between them, he just shook his head again, not even knowing enough to guess, and she began to cry, not graceful, quiet weeping he'd seen before, but awful shuddering, wretched sobs that made her convulse in his hold. Sucking in a shocked breathe, it took him only another moment to think, and he swept her up into a bridal carry before marching out into the woods as quickly as he could in the darkness with her held to his chest.

"Nathan's been dreaming, but he never said what about." - Clarke

Bellamy swallowed hard. "It's just a few seconds. Most... most probably don't even know where they are, or why."

Only once they were far from earshot did he stop, and find a dry spot to set her down before sitting beside her. Still she clung to him when he offered his arms again, and his shirt was soon damp from her grief.

How much time passed in the darkness, they did not know, only that Bellamy felt as it was an eternity for her to expend the misery of the reminder. He held her close, and every sound from her heartbreak was a cut against his soul. Death by a Thousand Cuts, all from her heart to his very soul. The girl who tried to hold everything together with just her own two hands, he should have done more to help, to take more of the burden from her slight shoulders. Finally, the shudders slowed, and another painful eternity of the sniffles and whimpers as she tried to find her well of control again passed... until finally he thought she'd fallen to slept upon him, and decided they'd stay there for the night. After everything else they'd faced, in this life and the last, the dark forest alone did not feel like something to fear.

"They all died. All of our people. I failed them all. It was all for nothing. I did horrible things to save us, and I still... I couldn't even save you." confessed Clarke, her voice roughened and thick from the sobs, breaking through the illusion of her sleep.

Bellamy sighed, squeezing her tightly, before he loosened enough to pull back so he could see her face. Even in the dark, he could make out her swollen eyes and the pallor of her grief.

"You didn't fail, Princess. Everything went to hell, and there wasn't anything to be done about it. Nobody knew. You couldn't."

"This was supposed to be the second chance. Why? Why are they remembering now?"

"They don't know it's real, Princess."

"Not yet. But they'll figure it out. Too many of them died together- they'll figure it out when they talk it over."

"Nah, Princess, it's a pretty big leap from "weird shared dreams" to "past lives." It's only their deaths they're dreaming of, nothing else." assured Bellamy more confidently.

"So far." muttered the golden haired warrior princess sullenly.

She went silent long enough again, that he began to wonder, to hope, that this was the end of it for the night... he was not so lucky.

"Are you... are you dreaming of your death too?" asked Clarke, her words so low it was hardly a sound at all.

"Why'd she have to ask? Why can't I just lie to her?" wondered Bellamy in frustration, but he finally caved, as he always felt like he did with her...

"Yea. Yea, Princess. I am. The last (?) few nights."

"How'd it happen?"

It wasn't a surprise that she didn't know. He knew that now, that they'd been so far apart, her all alone, him far above her in space. Octavia had always said, when pushed to discuss this, that she knew every single human must have died, but Clarke had always hoped that the Go-Sci seven would have survived.

"We made it to space. You did it, Princess. You got it working, because we were inside." explained the guard quietly, seriously, as if speaking of his own death didn't horrify him.

"You died back on the Ark." whispered Clarke.

"We just didn't have oxygen for the trip."

"Maybe if I'd gotten the satellite aligned sooner-"

"Not your fault. We tried to take up too many people with little oxygen. That's it. If we'd had a couple extra tanks to share..."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Bell. I'm sorry."

Her pleading apologies tore at him, and he gripped her ever tighter, pressing kisses to her hair, swearing her that there was nothing to forgive her for.

"Everyone's going to know I failed them. Everything's going to fall apart." whispered Clarke.

"Skaikru is too tightly bonded for that, ok? We're not going to let things fall apart. We've buried our dead together, we've worked for a hundred days side-by-side, we've bled, we've cried, been scared,and been furious. Watched you go to battle to save our people." insisted Bellamy.

As he held her, with his hands gripping too tightly, and his arms like steel bands, she thought about what they must be thinking... what they must think of her... all the mistakes she'd made.

Blatant lies, and unanswered questions.

Following Theolonious' example. His belief is making the best decision possible, and hoping for a for a forgiving god still seemed sound... yet she'd crossed terrible lines with it in mind.

Lying to Arkadia- that false hope that turned the end of the world even more bitter when it was revealed.

Taking the bunker... she would have given Roan a place inside it, with as many of his people as she could save, but would he have taken it, after her deceptions?

Repeating her mother's mistakes, really.

How had she gotten here to this?

What had twisted her from her father's daughter, to her mother's successor?

Her mother covered up, hid, whispered, and schemed, and lied... trying desperately to change as little as possible, always. Mount Weather had been terrifying from the very beginning because of that. Sterile, bright, perfect rooms, behind locked doors, and silence... unnatural, smothering silence. The sound of the Alpha med-bay during quarantines. During medicine shortages.

During medical rationing.

Death, suffering, treatable, preventable, blatant lies, and unanswered questions.

This wasn't how she wanted to lead.

She didn't even really want to lead, but she couldn't stop trying.

They deserved the truth, didn't they?

The price of existence was constant work- carrying water, boiling it clean, washing their clothes, their few linens, their furs, trying desperately to avoid descending into absolute filth, hunting, processing the kills, preserving all they could, cooking, tending the fires, watching the walls... no one was idle in Hundred Camp for long. Even Mary was still hard at work- often washing, since cooking made her so nauseous. They weren't kids. Not even the youngest of them, not anymore.

She couldn't repeat her mother's mistakes anymore. A genius, but... selfish. She didn't just want to keep herself and her friends safe... no, she strove to keep them in power. Abby Griffin hadn't just tried to keep her daughter safe, but under control.

Her father... there was the legacy she wanted to protect.

Neither perfect, but one could see that a better world for everyone included their daughter.

One couldn't.

Clarke broke, tumbling forwards again into Bellamy's arms. Shuddering, she suppressed the urge to sob in order to force out words.

"We'll tell them in the morning."

 _92 Days Till the End_

Dawn came too early. Monroe had grumpily curled into a ball beside Clarke the night before, and Bellamy had retreated to sleep directly below the door's lever. Hearing the watchers' holler out the morning wake-up call, Clarke rolled over onto her back to stretch out. Still beside her, Monroe ducked entirely beneath the ugly, warm blanket she'd claimed. Even with her face buried in the moss stuffed pillow, Clarke could still hear the mumbles issuing from her, and chuckled lowly. No one could curse quite like the red head.

When she opened her eyes, she found Bellamy already on his feet, stretching languidly. Doubt pinched at her mouth, and tightened her frame as sleepiness fell away. He offered her a lopsided smile in greeting, and threw the lever to lower the door. Across the level, Atom and Collette groaned at the noise, having slept through the watcher's yell apparently. Untangling herself from her boyfriend, Collette sat up, and glared at Bellamy blearily. Which he returned darkly, until Clarke cleared her throat pointedly.

"Gather everyone up." ordered Clarke, her voice flat, and her face wiped clear of all her doubt.

With a hard nod, he crossed the floor to climb half-up the ladder and bang on the hatch, before returning to the open doorway. Down he marched, looking around to see who was already up.

"C'mon, everyone, get to the fire, now!"

At Bellamy's roar, sleepy faces peeking out of the cabin's ill-set, creaking door. The boy up on the watcher's ledge by the gate turned to stare over at them, and the flaps of the water tent rustled as one of the crew leader's ducked out hesitantly, water jugs already slung over his shoulders.

"EVERYONE!" confirmed Bellamy in a booming yell.

Grumbling, all the kids already up and moving came scurrying, except for a few haphazardly trying to rouse the rest. With a pained groan, Bellamy roughly rubbed his face with both hands. He was doing his best to shape up the delinquents into a solid force, but they usually still acted like the kids they actually were. It took more than a half-hour to round the lot up, but the last fifteen minutes had been spent tracking down a missing couple of delinquents. Sterling and Bree had apparently passed out behind the dropship late last night. With everyone accounted for, Clarke and Bellamy pressed closer to each other, and urged the kids to huddle together.

Gulping, Clarke eyed the faces in front of her. For the last moment, they were still somewhat...naive. This life, this time on Earth, hadn't been so bad. They still had their home, there had been no skirmishes with Trikru, they hadn't had to suffer under the Ark's Exodus charter... Life was hard, but they were willing to work. The delinquents found a way to be happy enough with it, until the gloominess that had fallen on them. Now, Clarke wondered, how much of it had been about not allowing everyone to walk to Polis, and how much had been the dreams disturbing the peace of their lives. They hadn't yet pieced enough together from their morbid dreams, but she had to be honest with them before they did.

Her voice shook, but she spoke anyway.

"I am Jake Griffin's daughter, and I am honoring his legacy. Trusting in the example he set. He was floated for it, but he was right,"

"For those who don't know, Jake Griffin was the engingeer who discovered the life support failure- MORE THAN A YEAR BEFORE THE ARK CAME DOWN." added Bellamy gruffly.

"He wanted to tell everyone so that the Ark could figure out what to do together. The council disagreed. My mother disagreed. He was floated, and because I knew... because I agreed with him, I was put into solitary."

She'd never really explained that to the delinquents as a whole, not in the life, and not really even in the other. This time, she'd honor her father better.

As the sun rose, brightening camp, the faces of her people were losing their sleepy looks, and growing defensive in their wariness.

"I'm sorry." she began, hesitating again, "I wish I didn't have to tell you this. I wish it wasn't happening. But it is, and you need to know. There's time to prepare, so please don't panic. We can get through this. Together."

Pausing hard, she swallowed hard, and Bellamy grabbed her hand, squeezing it firmly. How lucky Octavia was to have a brother, though Clarke, even as pang, half-guilt, half-grief, struck her deeply- Murphy should be here, if not for her mistakes, he'd be here. Watching her back. Surviving. Whatever it took.

With a deep breathe, Clarke locked eyes with Monroe, who stood next to Fox at the very front of the crowd, just barely out of arm's reach in front of the pair of leaders. Just as the shorter girl was staunchly ignoring Bellamy, keeping her eyes fixed on the blonde girl. The smile Clarke attempted fell flat.

"After 97 years, we thought Earth itself was safe, but it is still facing the consequences of the nuclear disaster. The nuclear reactors all over the globe were all equipped with safety mechanisms which delayed meltdowns. But now we are going to have to deal with the fallout, and we can't stop it." blurted out the young leader.

As she grit her teeth, watching them take in that shock, Bellamy squeezed her hand tightly, and took over the explanation.

"A wave of radiation is coming..."

The very last shreds of nativity left in the hundred shattered... being torn from their faces, and hearts, leaving gaping wounds behind. So young to be so weary. One of the youngest boys, Kade, who loved the horses so much, choked on a sob he couldn't repress, but another boy just tossed an arm over his shoulder in solidarity. Mary began to cry, and Collette wrapped her up in a tight hug... Bree yelped, and tossed herself at Sterling, even as he caught her, he was staring, wide-eyed, at Bellamy. A few of the kids pushed out of the huddle, sinking to their knees, while others dropped down into the dirt, sitting with their faces buried in their hands. The bulk of the number, though... stood. Knees locked, fists clenched, biting their lips, or lips pressed tightly together, shoulders hunching defensively, with their eyes wide, but fixed on their leaders.

Awaiting orders.

Ready to hear what could be, what must be, what would be, done.

A smile crept up Clarke's face finally, though she squashed it as soon as it she realized. From the corner of her eye, she could see Bellamy's face lightening with the same pride that was welling up within her. They could do this. Their people, young and scared, were strong, and stubborn enough to survive.

"We have ninety days to get ready. We're going to hunt, gather and preserve as much as we can so we can bring a good supply in with us. That's what I'm going to need everyone to be working on."

"Space is limited, but everyone standing here has a spot guaranteed. No other clan is small enough to get to say the same thing. So they haven't broken the news yet. Please let their leaders have more time to plan before anyone else finds out. Trikru and Arkadia will get a hundred spots, as will the others." explained Clarke.

The smile came creeping back on her face as she could see them beginning to straighten up and stand taller again. Mary sniffled, then gently pulled out of Collette's embrace. A couple of kids behind him snorted and chuckled at something Atom muttered too quietly for Clarke to hear. Monroe huffed impatiently. Even flighty Bree was calming down enough for Sterling to let his arms drop, and little Kade had bit his lip, holding in all but that first sob.

"So what about-"

With Sterling's question, the grim silence absolutely failed, and questions poured out of the crowd, unstoppable. None pleasant. Each harder than Bellamy had imagined. The camp that had been so sullen as of late, was coming alive with a horrified urge to survive.

There, Bellamy spoke up. "We do not have privileged and unprivileged classes here. We're in this together. Our people. Skaikru. We have to depend on each other. Trust each other. Help. Protect. Whether you were forced on the dropship, or like, Wells, Raven, and I, came down by choice. Or like Wick who CHOSE US... We're family now. Clan. All of us, we're bound by that. Our blood, our dead, our home. Our past, and our future. Together."

Chants broke out, "Skaikru!" but Clarke held up her branded arm to stop it soon enough.

"These days... less than a hundred. These days are going to shape our entire future," reminded the young leader when they finally quieted to listen again.

"We will get through this. Like Bellamy said, together. Please believe that." she implored.

"I lay my head onto the vents. They're still. My chest burns. Everything does. Darkness takes me." revealed Bellamy, pulling all eyes from her onto him.

The silence of the crowd goes stiffer, more frightened.

Catching onto Bellamy's idea, Clarke spoke up again. "I fall to a cold floor. Blisters are covering me, and there's never been anything that's ever hurt so bad. I'm puking blood. I miss my mom. And then it's over."

Shrugging blithely, Monroe adds on as the rest as they still gaping.

"I'm outside, it's daytime, and there's screaming all around. I don't know what's going on. Air's poisoned. Acid fog, maybe. I don't know. Choked to death, it felt like."

Another kid speaks up, and another. The fear, the pain, the confusion, pour out from the crowd. When tears begin to pour down Clarke's face, she's far from the only one. Their sins and tragedies are catching up to them even here. Not one of the Hundred have escaped the scars from a life they'd forgotten.

 _After Breakfast_

"Clarke?"

The timid voice made her look up instantly from the notebook she'd carefully been adding to.

Walking into the dropship, the tall, thin Bree, and fluffy, brown haired Sterling, with a wide space between them looked decidedly shifty. Barely smothering a groan, Clarke closed the notebook and let it rest on the makeshift exam table. It was never good when one of the delinquents looked this awkward.

"What's wrong?" asked the young leader, keeping her voice flat, and watching uneasily as they squirmed.

"Ummm..." stuttered Sterling unhelpfully.

Bree rolled her eyes at him, forgetting her own anxiety for a moment, and sighed. Only once she'd dropped her gaze back down to the metal floor, was she able to speak.

With just a nod, Clarke turned away. Rummaging through the supplies she'd brought from the mountain, she pulled out a plastic bag calmly. Grabbed one narrow foil pack from it. Looking back at the two of them, she held it up.

Not even a half-hour later, she sent the pair on their way out of the dropship. Leaving Bree to Monroe and Fox's hands, who'd been waiting outside the dropship, Sterling grabbed the nearest kid sitting around and started off for Ton DC.

"Bree's pregnant," announced Clarke grimly.

Cringing, Bellamy looked up at the blonde who'd just stormed up the ladder.

They shared a look- remembering the most awkward days on Earth- when they'd all been contemplating the possible pregnancy of Roma Bragg, following the Sex Ed talks Clarke had forced him to do with the boys, and she'd done with the girls. It wasn't possible to keep from remembering Roma's death not long afterwards.

"Pregancies will take up spots. We've got to make that clear. To everyone," continued Clarke.

 _Second Dawn_

The engineer hummed as he worked. Raven was fairly sure that was Sinclair's fault, since ever damn engineer she'd ever met that he'd trained, had done so. Now, though, there was just Wick and Monty, and somehow Wick's was more annoying. Louder, maybe, and more off-key.

"This means I don't have to keep trying to hunt, right?" asked Wick, suddenly, feeling the weight of her annoyed stare.

"Not like you were of any use from what I saw." replied Raven, her nose in the air, as she remembered him trailing dejectedly behind the fifteen and sixteen year old kids that filled out the hunting crews back at camp.

Chuckling, he replied, still out of sight under a desk, banging around far more noisily than she was sure was needed.

"I'll happily admit it so long as Bellamy doesn't drag me out again trying to get me to shape up. Getting left behind was a dream come true."

"Well, these rickety old catacombs sure aren't up to Mt. Weather standards," groused Raven as she glared at a handful of dusty, disconnected wires.

"Private versus government," pointed out Wick, singsong, from under one of the long desks.

"Uhuh, that does not excuse this pathetic tech," said Raven as she continued trying to rerig the entire section in a more orderly fashion.

Banging his head, Wick ducked out from under the desk in order to stick his tongue out at her.

When she ignored that, he tossed a dusting rag at her head.

Snorting, Raven knocked it away from her nose just before it made impact.

"You saying you won't stay here with me in the rust bucket?" teased the engineer, stll squatting beside the desk but watching her hopefully.

With a scoff, Raven turned back to her own task.

"C'mon, Wrench Monkey, we could be happy here, holding this place together with just our hands and all the electrical tape we can find."

She snorted again, but refused to look up.

"Idiot. My name's been top of the list for Mt. Weather since Clarke showed us this dump."

"Awww, but blondie won't keep you from joining me if you wanna switch."

"Which I don't." countered Raven.

She sat back, admiring the newly untangled, and reconnected wires, with a smirk.

Wick waved his arms enthusiastically. "What about me? Besides, this is the big sanctuary- and it's the real challenge. We oughta be here!"

"Pffft. You wanna be with me, you'll know where to find me. Otherwise, see ya in a five years. Sinclair and I'll be just fine." laughed off Raven.

Jumping to her feet, she began to stalk about the room, searching for her next task. Wick, still squatting beside the desk, gaped at her. Which she steadily ignored. He finally shut his mouth, and slowly, a grin grew on his bristly, sunburned face.

"Well, I do love you. So sign me up for the cozy little hole." he announced.

She froze, with her back to him, interrupted in the process of mentally nitpicking the skimpy command center.

"You picked me." she murmured under her breathe, and refused to repeat herself when he obnoxiously asked what she'd said.

"Good job realizing that I'm right. As usual." taunted Raven instead, throwing a smirk over her shoulder.

He laughed, loud and happy, making her soften a bit, the sharp edges melting.

"Wick, you know,"

Stalling, Raven bit her lip, sharply, drawing a taste of blood. Her hands shook, so she balled them into fists. He waited, silently, holding his breathe. The silent bunker was an escape from time itself it was so still in that moment.

"I do love you." she blurted out.

There. She'd said it.

First time ever, she'd said it to any guy besides Finn.

Cringing at her own awkwardness, she narrowed her eyes. Then leaned closer to the white board in front of her, as if reading the messy scrawled to-do list they'd made only hours before. Behind her, Wick sat down heavy on the ground, and grinned up at her back- the tight, sleek ponytail she rarely freed her hair from- the red bomber jacket she was apparently gonna wear till it fell off her- the shapely legs hidden under heavy-duty, Ark issue cargo pants.

"You ever gonna call me Kyle?"

His voice was hoarse, and his eyes gleamed, when she risked an anxious glance back at him. Ducking her lashes, she turned back to the white board, staring at it without any attention on anything it held...

"Nope."


	3. Happier

AN: It's been **forever**. I'm sorry. RL has just been insane, and I've been rewriting my previous drafts with some major changes for the future of this story. Hope everyone likes this greatly tardy chapter anyway.

 **Chapter 3: Happier**

(Marshmello ft. Bastille)

 _91 days till the end_

 _Morning_

Hardly a quarter of an hour from Hundred Camp's gate, Caliban's elbow nudged Clarke gently. He was marching at her side, with their companions falling out at ease behind them. When she looked questioningly at him, he slightly nodded up ahead, and to the side of her. Even with the mostly bare trees, other than the patches of evergreens, the bushes and trees were thickly crowded enough that it took a moment to spot the gleam of armor, and dark skin, off in the distance.

The pair leading the way walked mostly in silence. Caliban's steady gaze swept in each direction as they moved, and Clarke was mainly letting the chatter of Monroe telling Fox, Bree, Sterling, Mary, Collette, and Atom about Polis, and the journeys back and forth, wash over them. Barely noticing the quiet exchanges between Nyko, his son, and the pair of warriors that had flanked Caliban when they arrived at the back of the group, she still made sure their party didn't spread out too far apart, keeping the pace slow enough to accommodate Mary's slow steps in the middle of the group. Each time they came into sight of one of Triku's watchers, chosen by Anya from her most trusted men and women in Ton DC, Caliban would point them out discretely to Clarke. Only a few of them were close enough for her or any of the rest of Skaikru to notice on their own. So many, and so closely set, Clarke was willing to bet they could always see at least two of their fellows at any given time. Trikru, _Lexa,_ was taking no chances. _Azgeda,_ whether or not any of them remembered, would not get anywhere near the mountain in this life.

With the gruff warrior at her side, never beyond arm's reach, and the forest full of Anya's own chosen loyal, Clarke walked at ease.

In this moment, she felt _safe_. Unbidden, Clarke laughed, soft and low, and when Caliban eyed her curiously, a smile twitched beneath his sharp, dark eyes.

"Thank you, Caliban kom Trikru. If I said thank you a thousand times, it wouldn't be enough," she confessed softly, locking her bright blue gaze upon his face, even as they walked carefully.

The thick, damp floor of the woods was heavily coated in the slowly decaying leaves. It made for an odd, muted rustle as their large group trod upon them.

"I feel the sun on my face, the cold breeze of fresh air rushing past, I smell the forest, musty but _alive._ Just lying in wait for spring. In this moment, I am free. All my life on the Ark, Earth was the dream. Even... well, if... this all falls apart... I never imagined I would walk in a forest, safe and surrounded by allies... and friends. In this moment, I am _free_ ,"

As she spoke, focusing on the intense gaze of the man she couldn't help but feel guilty over, no matter the changes, Clarke did not realize the silence that fell on the group trailing them.

Caliban looked around them, less warily this time, he tried to see the world through her eyes- so young, so new to this land, but oh so magnificent. _.._

"Wanheda, I am honored by you," he murmured, more conscious of the listening audience, but looking back in time to catch a wide smile flashing across her face.

"As I am honored by you, and Trikru, and our alliance. Our friendship," returned Clarke, low, but reverent, as she lifted her gaze to the sunshine coming through the bare branches before them. Feeling the sun on her face, trying to soak in enough of it to last for a half decade. Slowly, the cheerful hum behind them resumed, and Clarke smiled over at the man at her side again.

On either side of the great door of the mountain, stood two Trikru men Clarke recognized- they'd accompanied Indra to Arkadia, a lifetime ago. They'd been two of the unit that had backed her at Indra's direction when she'd defied her mother, and wrestled control of Emerson from the chancellor. Her nod to them as she led the way into the bunker was respectfully deep. What had become of these men, who'd not seen more than once or twice after that... shamefully, Clarke realized, she had no idea. Crossing the threshold, shiver went down her spine, as it always did when she dared to walk where she'd slaughtered an entire civilization.

She stepped to the wall, and turned to watch the group follow her inside, Caliban first, taking a place at her side against the wall with a smirk.

Following behind Bree, and Sterling, Mary froze in the great, wide door frame. Her face was pale, and thin, and Clarke bit her lip at the thought that the young mother looked as though she'd seen a ghost.

It was only surprising not all of them did.

Opening her mouth, words failed, catching in Clarke's throat. She could not urge somebody inside of this place. Instead, she looked anxiously to Monroe, and Fox, as they parted to come in on either side of Mary. With a brusque nod, Monroe caught hold of Mary's arm on her side, and hauled her forwards slowly.

Mary groaned, but once through the threshold, looked down and continued under her own power forwards.

Clarke turned sharply away, to lead them on in.

Their footsteps echoed in the halls of smooth stone and cold metal.

The maternity wing of Mt. Weather was not connected to the main medical facilities, but it was located close by. It's waiting room was tiny- just two heavily worn, matching pastel paisley sofas, squeezed in front of a small secretary's desk.

Behind the desk, a key-coded door waited, and Clarke entered, thanks to Monty's previous visits. The long, narrow hall ran to each side, with five doors each left and right.

To Clarke's right, labeled doors announced the six bed maternity ward, a two doctor's office, and two multi-purpose procedure rooms whose large, equipped status revealed easily that they were used for everything from GYN exams to labor and delivery. To the left, a two bed quarantine unit, the operating suite, the tiny, but clearly efficient NICU, a storage room, and the lab.

Unlike the salvaged, thrown together OB facilities on the Ark, this compact wing, though a century old and heavily used nature, had been specifically designed. It had been state of the art at the time of the Catalyst, Clarke knew instinctively.

Once Caliban and his men, along with the eager, curious Artigas, and Monroe, with Atom and Sterling, had swept the wing- as if someone could possibly sneaked inside, with what looked like half of Ton DC surrounding the mountain on watch, Clarke shooed the most of the group back to the tiny waiting room.

Encouraging Nyko, Bree, Sterling, and Mary to follow her, and smiling when Collette came to walk at Mary's side, Clarke calmly began to explain the purpose, and possibilities of each suite within the wing. The two multi-purpose rooms, though mostly still white and metal, had faded decorations of soft pink and blue. Wide, lockable cabinets covered every inch of the wall that they possibly could of the long rooms. Just inside the door was a sink for scrubbing, and counter space, totally bare, for supplies. The back of the room was curtained off, and when pushed back, the washed out pink and blue checked curtain revealed a neonatal assessment and care station. The high, tiny exam table, and the newborn warmer made a wave of nauseous start in Clarke's stomach. Every child she'd killed, had been born here. To mothers who'd treasured them... held HOPE for them... which Clarke had burnt away.

Coughing a bit, she forced away those thoughts.

"This would be the best possible place to have your baby," pointed out the young leader smoothly, glancing back at the little huddle of Skaikru teenagers, looking terribly out of place in the birthing room- from their young faces, to their furs and the Trikru-gifted swords, Mt. Weather had never had expecting parents anything like these.

Pointedly touching nothing, the great bear of a Trikru healer was eyeing the levers and parts of the adjustable bed with great suspicion. Across the room, Bree was looking rather eagerly at the deep tub that took up a huge chunk of the long room, while Sterling seemed frozen in the doorway of the room. Meanwhile Collette was curiously looking over the molded plastic birth stool, and the puddle of deflated yoga ball, and the rest of the few supplies too large to be tucked inside a cabinet. Shoulders hunched, Mary was standing beside the rolling equipment tray that had been left abandoned in the center of the room. Her face had only grown more conflicted, her lip, chapped, Clarke realized faintly, bit till it lost color.

"It's just... not home," demurred Mary, her eyes locked down on the white tile floor that had yellowed with age.

"It's a graveyard," is what Clarke heard though.

"Running water, warming trays, resuscitation equipment, medications..." listed off Clarke flatly, even as she crossed the room to start at the cabinet nearest the door.

"I wouldn't want to walk through the woods in labor," pointed out Mary, ignoring Collette's attempts to pull her over to check out the tub, where Bree had sat down on the side of.

With a thoughtful hum, Clarke continued to rummage methodically, top to bottom, through the hidden supplies- finding everything from hand soap to newborn size clothes as she went along.

"So you could move in here once you're a bit closer." suggested the young leader.

"We wouldn't leave you here alone. Of course, you could ask whomever you wanted to stay here too," assured Clarke, when she glanced back over at Mary, and saw her horrified expression.

"Places are not evil. New life could revive this place," murmured Nyko kindly, even as he hesitantly leaned closer to examine the infant warmer.

With both of the expecting mothers weighed, blood samples, and hesitantly brought to the lab to be tested, with Nyko on her heels, silently taking it all in, Clarke then searched the storage room, making mental notes- every piece of equipment she could have imagined, but very low stock of _all_ medications.

Mary had been left with Collette in the first room, and Bree sent off with Sterling to get comfortable in the second. Ultrasound machine, neatly ready on a rolling cart, in tow, Clarke knocked on the door, and a moment later, pulled the cart inside, nodding her head to get Nyko to follow her.

On the bed, leaning back slightly, Mary and Collette had their heads close together, talking intently, but both straightened up when Clarke entered the room.

" _My first prenatal patient,"_ realized Clarke, a flash of panic rising, brief, but strong, so out of her depth she didn't know which way was up. It passed, with a deep breathe steadying herself, but she smiled awkwardly at the pair waiting anxiously in front of her. With another centering breathe, she wheeled the cart into place beside the bed, and began to get ready.

Collette watched her silently for a moment, before she resumed chattering cheerfully to Mary- gushing about names (Clarke really hoped Mary didn't take Collette's suggestion about naming the baby "River,") and whether or not she'd have a boy or girl. The flood of words tugged Mary's attention back to her friend, and left Clarke to fumble about in a little less pressure. In the drawer nearest the bed, she found the clear gel, that made Mary whimper at the coldness, and in the one below it, a sterile drape she used to tuck Mary's grounder-made drawstring pants down low enough.

Slowly, pushing through the uncertainty of acting way above her pay-grade, Clarke finally had everything arranged, and with a look encouraging Nyko to step closer, she pressed the wand, feather-light, against the taunt swell of belly before her. It took a second before she remembered it ought to be pressed firmer, and Clarke adjusted carefully, feeling Mary shift in response, and then a squirm of the child within made her gasp. Mary smiled, proud, and shy, and _hopeful._ Clarke grinned back.

The ultrasound machine she found was higher quality than the Ark had dreamed of- small and portable, but once she got it going, the picture quality was amazing, and it was easier to use- idiot-proof, Jackson might have whispered under his breath to her behind her mother's back, had this been what they'd learned to use in space. The monitor was small, but startlingly clear.

Gazing carefully at the screen, and rolling the wand slowly across Mary's belly, Clarke chewed her lip, blocking out the feel of all the eyes, wary, and hopeful, upon her. Watching the trio of females hardly more than girls, and the strange, fascinating tools, Nyko held his breathe unconsciously, feeling Wanheda's tension.

With a quick smile, she flicked the sound on.

Mary choked, and Collette squealed.

"That's baby's heartbeat," confirmed Clarke, grinning at the girls, and looking to Nyko to see his reaction. He smiled, pleased enough, though still obviously uncertain.

"Ohhhh my god," whispered Mary, her eyes huge, and trying to lean a bit forward to eye the monitor as best she could. Clarke picked it up, and showed it to the young mother for a moment, before bringing it back to the stand to keep going.

Clarke titled her head a bit, trying to make sense of the what she was seeing.

"I think baby's laying sideways," she murmured.

"Is that ok?" whispered Mary, and her friend gripped her hand tighter in support. Both their faces tensed in quick burst of anxiety.

Clarke looked up from where she was bent close to the screen.

"It's fine!" she assured them, "Not a problem. I'm just... I just have almost no idea what I'm doing with this, ok? Reading an ultrasound is a skill that I never learned. I can turn it on, and I can see that baby looks ok, but my measurements are coming back different every time, and I'm never going to precisely figure out a due date. I'm just... trying, best I can," apologized Clarke.

"I'm not a doctor," she reminded them, when they stayed quiet, exchanging looks between the expectant mama and her best friend.

"It's ok," whispered Mary. "I'm glad to have you anyway,"

Clarke smiled gratefully, and bent back over the small monitor. Murmuring quietly to Nyko, Clarke had him lean in close so she could explain as much as possible. If she wasn't around, he'd at least be able to check the heartbeat, basic position, and check for any major deformities.

Straightening up quickly, and nearly colliding into Nyko, Clarke sucked in a breathe sharply. Anxiety filled the room around, but then... she beamed at Mary.

"I think baby is around 3lbs, and 16 inches. I'm estimating approx 32-34wks, and..." Clarke paused, letting Mary and Collette grin at each other, and waiting for them to look back to her. "I think... I think I know baby's gender,"

Collette squealed, and Mary's mouth gaped open. Nyko sucked in a breathe, trying to lean around the young healer discretely to eye the screen in frank curiosity.

"Do you want to know? You can wait, if you-"

"No!" yelped Mary, before laughing happily. "Tell me!"

Clarke glanced back down at the screen, noticing Nyko's interest, she titled it for him to see better, she checked once again, just to be sure of herself before announcing...

"I can't say for sure, but I think... you're having a son,"

"A boy," whispered Mary, "a boy,"

"First sky child born on the ground," reminded Collette with a wide grin.

The young mother looked from Clarke's face, to what she could see of the monitor, and back down to her belly, a smile slowly building.

"My son, the firstborn of Skaikru," she murmured.


	4. Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

AN: let me know what you think!

Chapter 4

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

 _91 days till the end, continued_

 **Mount Weather maternity ward**

Mary burst into tears.

Clarke's mouth fell open, and she looked helplessly to Collette, who was looking down at her friend miserably. She wrapped her arms around Mary, and squeezed. Their young leader felt Nyko brush against her as he moved away, giving the Skaikru a semblance of privacy.

"Derek was so angry, but still..." Mary choked out before her voice gave way to sobs again.

Clarke's eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned forward, to place her hand gently on Mary's shoulder, around Collette's embrace.

"but still, he would have been anyway," Collette guessed at the rest of Mary's dropped thought.

Wiping frantically at her eyes, and running nose, even as the sobs kept coming, the other girl nodded helpless.

"I'm so sorry," whispered Clarke, squeezing Mary's shoulder.

It wasn't enough. It never was. Another life she hadn't saved.

Acquiring napkins to sop up the tears, and leaving her first patient in Collette's quiet comfort, Clarke hesitantly slipped away, following behind Nyko out the door. Another was waiting on her.

She pulled the door securely shut behind them. Then paused to lean back against it. Nyko hesitated, waiting on her, and Clarke rubbed her hands roughly over her own face. Trying to get some measure of perspective. She offered a pained smile to the Trikru healer, embarrassed at her reaction to Mary's tears, before moving to the multi-purpose room next door. With her hand on the door knob, she paused, again.

"This one is probably going to be more... invasive. I can go in first, and make sure she's comfortable with anyone else coming in?"

Nyko looked startled, but then shook his head firmly. He glanced away from her, and the door she stood in front of.

Clarke grinned a bit more easily at the healer's obvious reluctance.

"Or you could get Monroe to show you to the main medical ward to look around," offered Clarke instead.

Inside the second multi-purpose maternity room, Bree was sitting alone on the bed side-ways with her legs dangling off and hands clenching the blanket at her sides. Clarke walked in quietly.

"You might be too early for an external ultrasound, so since we may try an internal, I thought you'd be more comfortable without Nyko..."

The tall, thin girl nodded vaguely. Actually, thought Clarke, Bree looked less bothered by the idea than Nyko had.

"Do you want anyone to come in with you?" asked Clarke.

Bree shook her head roughly. Her long, stringy blonde hair ruffled around her.

"I don't want him here," she muttered, looking away.

"Ok. It's up to you,"

"It might, I mean, it might not be... Sterling's,"

"Oh," murmured Clarke, awkwardly.

"Maybe Troy," muttered Bree irritably.

Clarke frowned a bit, began to reach out for the other girl, but faltered. Awkwardly, Clarke toys with the tablet she'd picked up.

"We'll run a paternity test. Perfectly easy here. It is possible to do it prenatally, but it's much safer to wait until after birth. Amniocenteses is actually fairly safe, but I've never performed one. Jackson could be a possibility," 

Bree shrugged.

Clarke's concern grew.

"It's ok. These things happen. Even on the Ark sometimes. You won't be alone, and I will make sure you have all the help you need, no matter who the father is,"

Bree's head only lowered closer to her chest as she stared down silently. Setting down the tablet, Clarke looked down at the the counter for a long moment.

Breathing slow as she tried to figure out the words, Clarke stepped closer, and tried to angle so she could meet Bree's averted gaze.

"But pregnancy and birth are risks in our situation. Even with this ward. Even with Jackson and my mother. If it's early enough, I've found medications here that would induce termination. Medically, there's risks to that too. And surgical termination could be an option if Jackson or my mother are willing to perform it, but I don't know that they would. It has even greater risks than the oral medication route. I really don't know much about this, but I can look into the risks more for you,"

"Do I have to?" asked Bree, with her head still lowered and voice flatter than Clarke had ever heard the playful girl.

"No!" blurted Clarke, "I'm sorry, I did not mean to pres-"

"But I can?" interrupted Bree.

"Yes," assured Clarke, her voice hesitant and uncertain, but her bright eyes fixed assuringly when Bree finally looked up.

"I didn't think it'd be my choice," admitted Bree.

"Even... even if you give birth, but don't believe raising the child yourself is the best for you both, that's a choice too. We could make that happen," suggested Clarke slowly.

Hunching her shoulders again, Bree looked away, beyond Clarke to the door, where beyond it, somewhere, Sterling was hopefully still waiting.

"Do I have to decide now?"

Shaking her head, Clarke picked up the tablet again, and switched it on.

"The risks to termination rise as time goes on, but let's do the ultrasound and get your blood work results before we deal with that, ok?"

With a half-shrug, Bree shifted her thin frame around, scooting back so she could lay down. As Clarke prepared to try an external ultrasound, Bree looked around the room some more, eyeing the great tub, and the odd looking stool while biting her lip.

"What about the radiation down here?"

Clarke hummed thoughtfully.

"Honestly, I'm not sure, but because of the genetic engineering on the Ark, and the generations of solar radiation, I don't think it will be a major concern. Until we get closer to Praimfaya. Levels are rising, and even though we have three months until it's unsurvivable... You should consider moving in here early. A month before Praimfaya at least. Just to be cautious. We can run the O2 scrubbers and the minimize the radiation even before we seal,"

Bree scrunched her nose unhappily.

 _Floukru_

The rising heat and humidity was the first thing Octavia was aware of as she woke. The unpleasant stifling weather of only one place she knew of.

 _Thrice damned Floukru._

Having willingly drugged herself, _again,_ in order to get paasage onto Floukru's rusting rig, she woke up slowly with a pounding head. A deep, slow breathe. Lincoln was stirring beside her. He'd already been murdered by Pike the first time she'd come here. Others in the space around were beginning to as well- rustles of stiff cotton, and coarse leather, against the metal floor. Last time, Lincoln was dead, and she'd brought instead Bellamy, Clarke, and Jasper, guided by the map in his journal. He stretched languidly beside her, moving a bit closer, his arms and shoulders brushing soothingly against her. Octavia scowled before she'd even opened her eyes. Seeing _Luna_ again had not been on her bucket list. The coward, and traitor, to not just her own blood, but the coalition itself had caused so much of the insanity of the final days of Earth. If she'd just ascended when they'd brought the flame to her, they would have had so much more time to prepare.

To improve their chances.

Maybe the bunker could have been reinforced.

Maybe no one would have had to try to get back to the Ring.

Only Lexa's heavy hints that no one else _knew_ enough to handle this delegation had gotten her here. In truth, Clarke knew well enough, but once she was disarmed, she was useless- as she'd proven on their last trip here.

A deep groan from somewhere beyond Lincoln echoed in the long, narrow shipping container.

"Floukru offers food and drink once you all are recovered enough," came the infuriatingly calm voice of the Floukru ambassador, Piers.

Whom was _not_ the ambassador for the ocean clan in the last life, inexplicably, realized Octavia suddenly.

Ignoring her soreness, Octavia pushed herself up to her feet swiftly, pulling away from Lincoln's closeness.

"I don't need to recover from that little concoction you lot hide behind," spit Octavia.

Her cheeks flushed darkly, and she clenched her fists, annoyed at the absence of her weapons. Behind her now, Lincoln rose to his feet.

The ocean clan ambassador waited placidly.

Octavia sneered impatiently, and could not see Lincoln's frown. Easier the rest, she shook off the dredges of fuzziness, recognizing it from before.

In some burst of mischief, Lexa had ordered Wade of Blue Cliffs, along with his partner, Zavian of Glowing Forest, Jorum kom Sandakru, and his Delfikru partner, Tret. The last three of the unit had accepted their orders from the heda to answer to her for this mission with ease. The Blue Cliffs warrior had gritted his teeth so hard for the entirety of that meeting, Octavia had gleefully known his sore would have been left sore.

These four came lumbering to their feet, irritable with their pounding heads.

"Let's get this started," barked Octavia sharply, "And you'd damn well better not have let anything _slip_ while we were drugged," she threatened, bouncing restlessly in place. Ready for a fight, if he so much as glanced away in guilt.

Lincoln moved closer, coming up even with her, to rest a hand soothingly on her arm.

The rest of their unit, still shaking off the grogginess, nevertheless glared from the side, and behind her, at the ocean clan's ambassador.

He bowed his head slightly in respect.

"I have remained at your side in order to keep the faith of this mission, as promised," he assured them calmly.

Octavia huffed in acknowledgment. With a jerk of her hand towards the container's closed doors, she urged him on.

 _Hundred Camp_

Sunset found Clarke in the dropship's lower level. Her carefully tended notebook, freshly updated after their trip to Mount Weather, was already replaced into the slim metal cabinet built into the dropship's wall. Dinner would be ready soon, she could tell from the noise level outside, but she was scrubbing down the med bay corner with sharply potent alcohol, and sun dried rags. In case it was needed while she away, Clarke was leaving it as clean as possible.

Heavy footsteps came up the entrance, and Clarke looked over her shoulder to see Bellamy. His jaw clenched, and eyes intent upon her. She let the alochol soaked remeant of someone's old Ark t-shirt drop to the makeshift exam table. Turning to face him, and careful not to brush against the wet table, she braced herself for whatever was making him look at her like that.

"Why can't you just stay?"

He threw the words at her just as he had learned, in this life, to throw spears- doggedly swift and sure.

"What use am I really to our people here?" demanded the younger of the leaders. Her shoulders hunched in on herself, and she crossed her arms under her chest.

"Look, Bell, I lazed around for a week, but now that Arkadia's out of Polis, I can actually get back to work. I shouldn't have left Charlotte, but she begged to stay with Aden. I can't just sit here, doing nothing, while we are waiting for the end of the world," explained Clarke earnestly, her big blue eyes pleading with him to understand.

"Can't you see how much there is to for you to do here?" His retort flew out at her, even as he moved closer, into her space. She stepped back against the table, forgetting it was still wet from her cleaning.

"There is _nothing_ here I am _needed_ for. In Polis, I can be helping with the preparations, and protecting Second Dawn and those are the most important things," replied Clarke wearily.

He snorted, and looked away from her, as if he couldn't bear to look at her any longer. He stepped to the side, and stood, glaring out at the entrance of the dropship in frustration.

"But... I can come back more often. It's only a day, or night's ride, I can make the trip twice a week, splitting my time between home and Polis," promised Clarke quietly before easing around him, and out towards the camp.

Dinner time, crowded around the fire, with their little bent metal cups of moonshine, and hot, roasted meat, was a favorite time of day for most of Skaikru. Between the crowding close in their furs, the vital fire, and the warmth deep in their gut from the alcohol, they were warm enough, and at rest, for a change.

As she stared into the fire, surrounded by her people in the midst of dinner, Clarke considered the issue at hand. Caliban, Nyko, and the rest had gone back to Ton DC, but Caliban had offered to ride back to Polis with her tonight.

He'd be at the gate before too much longer, but Clarke knew she could demure, and reschedule their return, without him holding much of a grudge if any.

 _Reasons to Leave_

She'd already skipped the summit, and truly, she had to keep working with Lexa for everyone's sake.

Bellamy's sad, disappointed eyes, that she feels on her nearly every moment she spends in Hundred Camp.

The primary bunker must be protected at all costs. Mt. Weather could save only a fraction of what Second Dawn could, and at least Mt. Weather was firmly entrenched in Trikru territory. The vicious Anya stood between it, and falling.

Charlotte... why was Wells' anxious about her, and what was she going to do about the novitiates? Wells must be wondering why Clarke would take care of his murderer.

Her people needed to knowshe was going to do everything she could to protect them- including making sure Praimfaya was well prepared for. Mary's pregnancy seemed to be going fine, despite some dehydration, and with Bree being so early, there wasn't anything for Clarke to do anyway.

The only reason to stay... _Bellamy._

That wasn't enough to change her plans. She couldn't let it be. In those slowly blurring memories of _before_ they'd done such horrible things to each other, in the name of their people. Their duty. Their loyalty to others.

Distance might be their only saving grace.

Packing up barely took ten minutes, not bothering with more than what her mare and she herself could easily carry. Travel was becoming routine, like it had those months she'd spent alone, trying to outrun her sins, before.

Bag slung across her shoulder, Clarke trudged out from the drop ship. Shoulders squared as she resolutely stared down to just in front of her feet as she walked.

"Clarke, wait up!"

Marching over from the fire, Monroe waved her down, and Clarke looked up, a weak smile forming. Atom was right behind her, and others followed them away from the heat.

Clarke met the group not far from the gate. Jasper leaped forwards to hug her, and Atom patted her on the back companionably, while Monroe grinned up at her sharply.

"Are you really leaving me behind?" taunted the shorter girl, shoving at Clarke's shoulder.

"I know you'd rather go back, but... there is something here you could help with. Tell them, any of them who will listen, about Polis. About these people we're about to spending five years with. Get them ready, if you can," - Clarke

Monroe rolled her eyes, "Yes, your highness," she sighed, but the smirk that stretched across her fair, freckled face a moment later belied the grudgingness.

"Can't we go?" chirped Jasper's girl eagerly.

Jasper looked hopefully between Mischa, and their leader, his arm sweetly around the dark haired girl.

"For now, we've got enough people in Polis. Once the others come back to continue work at Mt. Weather, I might bring a smaller group to the capital, but I'm not sure," hedged Clarke tactfully.

The girl shrugged Jasper's arm off of her shoulders with a sullen look, and fled for the cabin. Flushing pink, he gave Clarke a puppyish look of hurt. She leaned forward, squeezing his forearm consolingly, and held on for a moment.

"She's upset... about Derek, and you know," he waved his other hand vaguely around.

Slowly, Clarke nodded, but still looked worriedly at him, taking note of the stressed lines on his forehead, and how he bit the inside of his cheek...

The cabin door thudded dully, as the girl tried to slam the heavy, creaking thing. Jasper shuffled his feet, and looked down, away from Clarke's frank concern. With a faint attempt of a smile, he turned away and wandered off towards the fire. From behind her, Clarke heard someone scoff loudly, and whirled around to glare at Atom.

Instead of mocking Jasper, though, as the blonde had thought, Atom was rolling his eyes as he gazed towards the cabin.

"She's been a super bitch since you all left for the summit," grumbled the boy they'd left in charge alongside Jasper.

"I thought she was... sweeter than that," muttered Clarke.

"All honey-sweet till she doesn't get way. Try telling her to quit the gossiping and get to the washing up," corrected Atom.

Clarke just sighed.

"We have bigger things to worry about," she reminded him, and herself too.

"Yea, like freezing to death now, or burning to death in a few months," drawled Monroe.

Atom blanched, but Clarke snorted, and it turned into a hysterical giggle.

"Oh, god, yes, things like that," huffed out Clarke as she fought the laughter in vain as Monroe's smirk only grew. The young leader looked so ridiculous trying so hard to stop from laughing, that Atom and Monroe joined in, snickering at _her._

"Oh, the great and majestic sky princess," taunted Monroe.

Choking on her own indignity, Clarke bent over in half, still giggling, till she clapped her hand over her own mouth to silence it.

They stood talking and laughing, with others coming up to say quick farewells, drawn in by the softly jovial racket.

It was just the kind of good-bye she needed, thought Clarke.

Camp wasn't back to normal. They couldn't ever go back to that... almost idealytic period that they'd managed to have this life. Sunshine, and fresh air, and walking in the woods without any known enemies... Hanging out around the fire each night with their people. Warm furs, and a cabin to huddle in together at night... it was what Earth should have been.

The dreams had ruined the contentedness of their existence.

Derek's death had reminded them that uncertainty still lurked.

The knowledge of Praimfaya had burnt away the last of their comfort.

But they were resilient, and if they survived, her people would have time to find their hopefulness again.

Clarke finally slipped out the gate, her mare and bag ready, to wait, under the dutiful gaze of the watcher on duty with a torch and rifle above the gate.

"Hey, Clarke, remember, don't freeze!" called Monroe loudly, as the gate swung closed with a hard thump.

"I'll try!" laughed Clarke from the other side.

She turned away from the gate, still smiling at Monroe's taunts, only to find Bellamy waiting, leaning against the outside of the wall.

"Waiting with me?" she asked softly, looking up at him anxiously.

He turned his face towards her, serious and intent, though he remained leaning causally against the wall. Clarke shivered at the grimness of his eyes.

"Marry _me."_

His suggestion sounded more like an order he'd throw at his gunners. It came out of the quiet, striking as harshly as a whip. Clarke's inhale of breathe was obnoxiously loud, and she stared up at him, her mouth open, without words.

"Bellamy! You don't-"

"Clarke, I'm serious. Will-?" continuned Bellamy, with his eyes full of solemn determination.

"No!" she yelped, not even letting him finish the question.

At his surprised, and downright _hurt_ look, she softened. "No, Bell, we're not getting married just to throw the grounders off my scent."

"Do you _want_ them to keep vying for you like you're a bitch in heat?" he demanded.

Lips thinning, she glared.

"Don't be an idiot," snapped Clarke. "It's not an actual problem for us to be worrying about. It's not a big deal. No one is trying to _make_ me chose."

"Not yet, but if you keep them all the hook, they will!" thundered her partner, the manager, and protector, of Hundred Camp, sounding dangerously close to truly losing his temper.

"I'm not keeping anybody on the hook! As soon as the ambassadors know about Praimfaya, I can explain-"

"Like they're going to care!"

"It's none of your business!" shrieked Clarke.

Her voice rising spitefully, coming forwards at him angrily, shoulders bowed up for a fight, echoing Octavia, even if she didn't realize it.

But Bellamy _did._ He swallowed hard. Again. Octavia was as hot tempered as Clarke was cold blooded, he would have said. Even when they huddled with their heads bowed close as they plotted and schemed together, which seemed like always to him, they faced their choices with such different manners. But they were more alike than he'd realized. Or they were growing more alike, and he hadn't noticed. Because neither of them were ever around.

"Clarke-" Bellamy's voice cracked painfully "Please, let me help you. I just want to protect you."

The admittance was rough to force out, and his eyes were wide open, beseeching her to understand him how Octavia never did anymore. Not since she'd woken up, a different girl than the one he'd always known. _That_ he'd noticed. Just... she'd been getting older. Less a kid, closer to an adult, and still trapped... and he'd thought... of course she's angry. Angry that every day, Mom and I leave the room, but she never will.

The blonde girl _did_ soften again.

She reached for him. Took hold of his forearm with a weary smile.

"I don't need saving. This isn't a fairytale, or ancient myth... I'm no damsel in distress, and there's no dragon to slay, nor evil prince to save me from. Trust me, Bell,"

Bellamy snapped his eyes shut. He was blocking out of the sight of her, so small and so young, and acting like she had no idea how awful this planet is. Her voice was low, and smooth, a calm command, lulling him into accepting her words. If he could focus on her voice, maybe he'd believe it. Yet...

"Nathan and Wells both offered to marry me, too,"

The admittance, half-amused, half-frustrated, was quiet enough not to be overheard by the watchers on duty- unlike their argument only moments ago.

He grunted in acknowledgment.

"My foolish, valiant boys. As if Nathan wants a wife. As if Wells isn't just _smitten_ with Gaia." continued Clarke.

Her face warmed at the sacrifices her friends had been willing to make for her. Without even knowing it, her eyes had softened, and her mouth curved in a smile.

"And what's your excuse for turning _me_ down?" asked Bellamy, his voice tight and hard, with his eyes scanning the forest around them, never allowing them to land on her, not when she was watching him from the corner of her own eyes.

A long, slow sigh was the only answer at first.

She mulled over it for quiet minutes.

"You're Octavia's brother, and my partner in leading our people. I'm not your sister, but you try to watch out for me, the same as her. Bell, you're my _friend. Like Wells. Like Nathan._ None of you should give up your lives for me. It's ridiculous. The world's _ending_ , and the hope of being with someone you want to be might be one of only good things left for any of us,"

Somewhere close, an owl was hooting. Loudly. It sounded like home. This time around, Clarke realized, Hundred camp really was _home_. It was something to lose.

Bellamy's face was tight and hard, same as he held himself.

"I would protect you," he gritted out, his jaw clenching tightly.

Clarke smiled softly. She reached out, and took hold of his hand. "You already do that,"

"That's different," grunted Bellamy.

She titled her head, carefully looking into his eyes, reading the tightness of his face, and shuttered look in his eyes.

"Are you in love with me, Bellamy?" stressed Clarke pointedly.

He flushed, looking away for a moment, and when looked back to meet her gaze, he frowned.

"I love you," he assured her, far too quietly for anyone to overhear.

"That's different," she threw his words back at him.

With a lopsided shrug, and looking out into the forest, as if waiting for the appearance of the Trikru warrior, he conceded.

"But I still love you, and you still belong here," he tried again, low, and gruff.

Razor wires wrapped around her, pulling in different directions, nevermind the pain it caused. She wanted to stay, and she wanted to go. Neither was ever right.

"I'm no real use around here. In Polis, I can help with the preparations and actually get something done." argued Clarke, leaning against the horse, and grateful the little mare didn't sidestep out from under her.

"You're our only healer-" snarled Bellamy.

"They can clean their own cuts, and Nyko's always willing to help with anything worse. With the horses, it's hardly more than a half hour's ride to Ton DC. Plus with the radios, I'm only a day's ride away. You call, I'll come," soothed Clarke.

"We need you here, but you're always leaving." snapped Bellamy.

"You keep the camp running fine," dismissed the younger of the pair quietly.

"Except morale's in the toilet!" retorted her partner, his voice rasping and heated, his glare just as dark.

"I need to be with Charlotte, and Wells! You don't understand!" her voice cracked, and she turned her face into the horse's mane, hiding away until she blinked away the sudden tears.

"He must be so confused. I've watched out for her, and leave her there with him... Hell, I've asked him to protect her. His killer. I set him up as bodyguard for his murderer. Because I never thought he'd know," she whispered.

"He's a big boy, he'll deal with it." snapped Bellamy.

"No, Bellamy, I've got to go," she argued, and then swung herself up on the horse, to wait for Caliban's arrival.

"You can't seriously ride in the dark," he tried, sounding more tired now, reaching out to her pleadingly.

"It'll be fine. Caliban's made this trip hundreds of times,"

"You're actually going to marry him, aren't you?" snarled Bellamy, his temper flaring back up in full, and he stalked so close, that her little mare flattened her ears defensively.

Even on the horse, she wasn't that high above him, and as she looked down, with the torches over the gate, she could make out the tauntness of his jaw as he glared at her.

"It's none of your business." she hissed. "Now shut up, he'll be here any minute."

"Don't want your fiance to hear me talking about what a bad idea this whole damn thing is?" hissed Bellamy.

"Shut. Up." snarled Clarke.

Stiffly, he stood there at her horse's side. Silent, now. Just brooding up an awful mood.

Just before the Trikru warriors came into sight, Clarke leaned over the side of her horse a bit towards him, and hissed- "Idiot! I'm not marrying anyone!"

Long after she rode away, with that silent bear of a grounder leading the way into the dark, Bellamy stood there. He'd wanted to ask her what the hell they were supposed to do about the dreams, but instead he'd managed to get into another argument with her.

 **The Overnight Ride Back to Polis**

Green wasn't just a color. On Earth, it was vital, sacred, all-consuming. So many more shades, fainter, deeper, brighter... than she ever could have imagined, no matter how many times she'd immersed herself in the few Art textbooks they'd had in Space. Even in the dark, with only the torch of fire he carried to lit their way, she could make out some of the bright tones.

Beyond their greetings, and going over the simple plan for the night, Clarke kept quiet till they were far from Hundred Camp.

"Does Trikru know what happened to the boy of my people that died?" asked Clarke carefully, keeping her eyes straight ahead, but listening anxiously for her escort's reply.

"The boy tried, and failed, to fight his way into the mountain." rumbled Caliban.

"The narcotics," blurted out Clarke, her face going ashen in the pale light of the torch he carried.

The Trikru man glanced over at her, not recognizing that term.

"Pain medicine. So strong it should only be used in emergencies. He wanted it, because his leg still hurts. Still had hurt," corrected the young leader grimly. "I knew he wanted it, but I didn't... think..."

Biting her lip to hold back her groan of mortification, Clarke bent her head low over her little mare's neck.

"Thank you for bringing him home, and thank you for telling me." she murmured.

"Trikru keeps watch over the mountain, as promised." reminded the warrior firmly.

Silence fell between them- but the land around so much in sound that talking wasn't necessary... the wet, fallen leaves beneath the horses' hooves, owls in the distance, and insects, that Clarke knew would soon disappear. Derek's death really was her fault, she realized. Not just because she'd failed to save him, but because she'd known he wanted into Mt. Weather, and had just left him there at camp. Knowing if he'd tried to sneak into the bunker... Trikru would defend it with lethal force.

To her surprise, Caliban broke the silence this time, though, she wondered, it had been at least an hour, maybe two, since last they'd spoken, beyond "watch that hole up ahead,"

"Be assured, Wanheda, that I do not expect to find myself your husband," he announced gravely, out of the blue.

Knowing from the heat warming her cheeks that she was flushing, Clarke held his eyes for only a moment before looking forwards again. A wicked shine of amusement taunted her from his dark eyes, and crooked grin.

"I _am_ considering the proposals... But arranged marriages were not a custom in the sky, and I... was surprised to find myself at the certain of this-" tried to explain Clarke.

"Trikru was honor bound to propose a match once the others did, but a babe will slow you down, and a weak man even worse,"

"Indra has a daughter," pointed out Clarke.

The smile on his lined face was rueful. "But not a man. And Indra stayed in Ton DC for eight years to bring up that girl,"

"My people are too young to be parents anyway. It's gonna be hard enough for us to manage with Mary's, and Bree's," mused the blonde.

He raised thick brows when his gaze strayed back to her.

"Only so long can the next generation be put off." he returned, amusement lacing his face.

"Hod op!" barked Caliban, pulling back on the reins for his horse.

Instinctively, Clarke followed suit, but even as her horse came to a fast stop, she was cautiously looking all around. Her eyes landed him, as he turned his horse hard back the way they'd came, and urged it close to one of the numerous pine trees they'd just passed. It wasn't until his large hand came close, and pointed it out, that she spotted the bright, white spot at the base of a thick, low branch.

"Azgeda,"

"Ice Nation,"

They spoke at the same time, her not needing him to explain the significance of the white warpaint in Trikru territory. Not close enough to Polis to excuse the presence of Azgeda, much less the warpaint of their clan. The branch was a good one to tie a horse to, mused Clarke. As the tree was sunken back from the treeline a bit, with nothing blocking it from the path, and low, and strong enough to hold a horse if spooked.

"What do we do?" asked Clarke grimly.

He looked around again, and back to her.

"Cover your head," he ordered, low, and gruffer than normal even.

With a steady hand, Clarke yanked the coarse brown hood up. It went with the plain grounder garb she used she was using to travel. Then she tucked in every strand of her hair that had slipped from the braids she'd hastily done on her own, in absence of Octavia and Charlotte.

"Now, as we were. Fast. Don't stop," instructed Caliban, and the moment she accepted his plan with a curt nod, he wheeled his horse around- with a firm kick, sending it forwards quickly into a run. Clarke followed suit, groaning tiredly.


	5. Ho Hey

Chapter Five

 **Ho Hey, the Lumineers**

 _91 days till the end, evening_

The Floukru hospitality consisted of a lot of strong smelling, fire roasted fish, and slimy edible items Octavia couldn't identity today anymore than she'd been able to on her first trip. Even the children were drinking a weak, salty beer with dinner, and just as last time, they sat around in little groups. Talking, and taking turns telling silly stories as if making it quite obvious they were ignoring the outsiders' presence in their midst. Octavia itched all over. The sweat covering her from the unpleasantly humid day, dried and stinking now, and the tight, dark confines made it worse. It didn't even feel like winter here anymore.

Surrounded by her tiny clan, hardly bigger than Skaikru, the disgraced nitblida sat, smug and distant, preceding over the evening meal. The shadows and flames cast over her, Luna resembled her sister of the blood unnaturally so. The arrogant tilt of her chin as she ignored the commander's delegation had most of it brooding darkly by the time the meal was hardly underway. The sharp, hard gaze, and the slight, sneer... Octavia had never truly appreciated Luna and Lexa's similarities before. Till now.

Pressed close to his paramour's side, pointedly having sat between her and the irritable Blue Cliffs warrior, Lincoln was torn. Wishing to drift towards his old friend, but stuck as if by magnets to Octavia.

The young ambassador was sitting placidly at Octavia's other side, being as frankly ignored as the delegation was being by the rest of Floukru. Watching Piers kom Floukru from the corner of her eye, Octavia looked away to scan the mess hall again until she spotted the elderly man with the thick, bushy, short beard who'd been the ocean clan's ambassador before. He was sitting, flanking Luna, whom had her own boyfriend, Derrick, Octavia remembered, on her other side. Though the old man was eating quietly, Octavia knew he was watching her just as intently in return.

She didn't know many of the other Floukru- there was Adria, who'd made to Camp Jaha to die, at a group of children, as far from the delegation as could be, and Shay, whose death had pushed Jasper over the edge finally, but the rest she knew only by sight, really, telling stories loudly only a few feet away, at the fire nearest theirs.

"She has ignoring us all day," spat Octavia, without bothering to lower her voice.

"An insult to Heda," agreed Wade of Blue Cliffs hotly, and Lincoln shifted a bit more, placing his back to the ill-tempered fellow.

"These are hardly matters to discuss at dinner with too many ears able to overhear," counseled Lincoln, pitching his voice low, but his discomfort made him gruffer.

 _90 Days Till the End_

 _The morning Clarke arrives back at Polis_

When the sun came up, it offered a slowly brightening as they walked tiredly towards Polis. After pushing hard for most of the journey, they'd finally gotten close enough to the capital to slow down. Not long before dawn, the gruff Trikru man had dismounted in order to relieve his horse. With his feet back on the ground, Caliban stretched briefly, and loosened the girths to let the saddle and packs sit loosely. Once she'd followed his example, Clarke pet the frothy sweat drenched, warm mare gratefully.

Ambling the very last hour, Caliban, slow and unhurried, answered anything she could think to ask.

"My grandfather's grandmother lived through Praimfaya. Moira. She was just a young girl, but she is the only one of that generation I know of," admitted Caliban, holding branches back for Clarke to pass through a narrow squeeze.

Someone must have run ahead when they were spotted, because when Clarke came into sight of the tower, Titus was waiting, grim faced, though perhaps no more than usual. It was harder to read him, in this life, since he seemed to dislike her a fraction or so less. Without waiting to ask, her escort reached for the reins of her mare, and led her off along with his own towards the back of the tower.

"Yes?" asked Clarke as she reached Titus.

His scowl deepened, looking down at her severely.

"Heda has summoned you to your quarters- immediately,"

Upon reaching Lexa's personal rooms, she found the commander pacing restlessly in the bright light of dozens of fat candles.

"You missed the council on Praimfaya," snapped Lexa the moment the door was shut.

Pursing her lips, Clarke ignored the sharpness.

"Skaikru has been blamed for disasters we didn't cause _before._ There was no need for me to be there inviting a recurrence."

Turning away, Lexa withdrew a long dagger, that Clarke supposed was her favorite, as it was always the first one drawn. Before the blonde could think on it further, it sailed through the room to embed itself with a sharp thud into the circular board nailed into one wall. It looked, Clarke thought, like a dart board from the recreation room in Second Dawn, in fact.

The other girl didn't even bother watching once she'd thrown it. Dead center, on a spot that had once been bright red. Instead she turned to stare, flatly, at Clarke.

Who tried to ignore the unspoken demand.

Lexa's brow raised, just a hint, but otherwise she kept her face smoothly blank, in wait.

Huffing, Clarke gave in, pulling a knife of her own " _It's not even mine, really. It's Trikru's blood money for John._ Cutting off that thought before it could really strike,she aimed, taking longer than Lexa, and watched as it struck.

Only just making it on the outer ring of the board, still, it stuck.

At least they didn't fall to the floor anymore, clattering with shame.

Or out the window that was two feet over from the board.

Anymore.

Lexa nodded, pleased, the slight curve of her pretty lips offering a touch of smugness. Her shoulders eased, and calmly, she retrieved both of their knives. With a wider smirk, she offered Clarke's back to her, handle first.

"Again. We can train as we discuss this."

"You know I rode all night, right?"

Lexa's nod was delicately short, and she smirked, with a tinge of amusement bleeding through her composure.

"To train only when rested is to lose many advantages."

When Lexa finally conceded that Clarke was so done for the morning, the blonde limped from the commander's chambers. She was favoring her left side, where a cramp in her calf, and a particuarly heavy landing upon the cold floor together meant she was less than pleased with the training session.

Flexing her calf gently as she made her way towards her own chambers, she fought a grimace when Titus came around a corner, and lasered in upon her.

"Wanheda, may I have a moment?" inquired the flamekeeper as he drew nearer.

Clarke paused mid-step, already nodding automatically, even as she eyed the unfamliar man who followed the flame-keeper.

"Titus?" she prompted, once both men had come to a stop in front of her path.

He bowed his head slightly, before extending his hand to present the man at his side.

Sandy haired, with lightly red cheeks, fair golden skinned, and bright blue eyes, broad shouldered and tall, with sharp features and a hint of an amused smirk on his lips, Clarke immediately decided she'd never seen him before- in either life.

"Wanheda, I wish for you to meet Ulrin kom Delfikru, the clan's chief. Only yesterday, he arrived in Polis," said Titus smoothly.

The smirk grew, crooked and perhaps, she thought, self-deprecating, on the other man's face.

Clarke flushed, dark and hot, worsening the moment she realized it, knowing how awfully noticable it was. Pursing her lips, she nodded curtly.

"Nice to meet you," she managed.

"It is my _honor_ to meet you," assured Ulrin kom Delfrikru "I have heard much about you- especially today, from my young cousin."

Stiffening up when the man had begun, she relaxed once he'd finished. At the mention of the Delfikru nightblood, she smiled genuinely. "Aden is a remarkable boy," she commented kindly.

"It appears that he believes the sun rises, and sets solely upon your orders," remarked Ulrin, his smirk reappearing.

She startled, and noticed Titus' frown from the corner of her eye, but then chuckled when she decided that the Delfikru man had not meant it as a taunt.

"Perhaps he is not wrong," added Ulrin, earning a quick smile from the notoriously skeptical young woman.

Titus' frown dissolved into a bit more smug of an expression. He slyly backed away, without their paying any notice, to leave them alone.

 _In the land of ice and snow,_

From her great, wrought iron throne upon the stone dais, the queen of the ice nation glared down at the lone warrior before her. To either side of her, one of her own royal guard stood silent.

"Be prepared," she warned sharply.

The young field commander bowed his head quickly.

"My son sets out in four day's time, and you will take your leave afterwards," ordered the queen.

"Sha, azplana," barked out the young, but burly, fair haired warrior hastily.

"You _will succeed_ ," reiterated Nia, leaning forward to loom over him all the more.

As the field commander bowed yet again, the great, wide doors were knocked hard upon, and with her sharp consent, flung open.

Her own council, the war chiefs of every area of the ice nation, and her chosen advisers poured inside. The spy, a favorite of the queen, returned from the mountain, the nitblida, and finally her son, sullen though he remained, flanked by the security detail she'd granted him upon his own return.

Roan strode in, suspiciously watching all those around him. The prodigal, returned. Nia puffed up with the pleasure of his submission. Let him hate, so long as he feared.

Though chairs, many shapes and sizes, though all much smaller than her great throne, lined the back wall, none dared to chose one for themselves. Instead, the assembling, swollen greater than normal, with their seconds ordered to attend, jostled for position. As they tried to stand closest to the throne, Nia smirked down at them all. When she spoke, silence hell, sharp and clear.

"Welcome, my loyal friends," crooned the ice queen, lazing back in her throne, and sweeping her gaze slowly over the room.

Rustles spread again as heads bowed deeply, and murmurs of respectful, or fearful, greetings rose quietly up to the dais.

The queen did not miss her son's still silence, but ignored it. The prince's sullen boyish behavior would be noted by all those around him. All the grudging boy did was lessen his own dignity, and the threat he posed to herself. As if such a prince would be worthy of a coup to any Azgeda.

Pleased, she launched into the discourse required of the day.

Only once her war chiefs had appraised her of the ongoing preparations, and the advisers had argued over the border's reinforcements, did she turn her attention back to the grim visage of her son. Throughout the meeting, he had listened, silent, with his head turned away from her.

"See it that the border is _secure,"_ concluded Nia.

She turned her gaze upon Roan, and stretched her mouth out into a smile.

"My son, the crown prince Roan, shall reacquaint himself with the people of Azgeda," she purred,

Roan's head jerked up and over to meet his mother's eyes.

Her smile grew to show her teeth.

Just waiting for him to defy her.

"Atohl, you shall lead his security detail for the procession," added Nia lazily. The war chief of the capital straightened up, and eyed his second with his thick brows furrowed.

Roan turned to look at the war chief's second, as the room at large did as well. He grit his teeth. With his face contorted, barely holding back a snarl, he met his mother's eyes again.

With just a jerky nod, he agreed. Waiting, he listened, closely, silently, as the meeting continued on around him. That his mother was preparing for war, was painfully frank, but she did not speak of _why_ beyond the greatness of Azgeda's honor. Her sycophants demanded no explanation at all.

"Out, all of you," ordered the queen.

The room emptied swiftly.

Except for the prince, the queen, and of course, the warrior at each side of her.

It was not as if she could be left actually alone with her own son.

"You look more like your father every day," - Nia

"That is the nature of sons, is it not? I am merely the only one to live long enough," - Roan

She scoffed.

 _Hundred Camp_

"Bellamy, the radio! It's Clarke!" yelped Jasper, sticking his head out of the curtains only just far enough to be heard before scurrying back to continue hiding out.

Abandoning his wooden bowl of roasted deer chunks, Bellamy jumped to his feet. He left Sterling, and Atom to scavenge from it as he hurtled towards the radio. Crossing the camp from fire to dropship in long, hasty strides and when he reached the radio, sitting on the comms center on the upper level, he took a deep breathe before picking it up. Jasper hesitated nearby until Bellamy waved his hand pointedly towards the hatch.

"Hey, Clarke?" Bellamy tried.

She replied, flat and cool. "Report?"

Frowning at the lack of warmth, he forged ahead as soon as the hatch fell closed behind Jasper.

"Uh, everything's normal here. Fine, I mean. Thing is, Jackson radioed me when he couldn't reach you-"

"What's wrong?" she rushed him, voice rising and losing her blank effect of composure.

"Hey, chill, it's not a big deal. Apparently, he found some actual relative of Jasper's. Great-uncle, I guess. The old man's asking about him, and Jackson... well, he said if Jasper wants to meet him, it needs to be soon,"

She didn't respond for so long Bellamy thought she was gone. Her voice, when it finally came again, was muffled as she whispered closely into the radio. "That's new," she revealed.

"So?"

"I don't know why... I mean, what could have changed this?"

Bellamy shrugged, even though she couldn't see it.

"Does he want to go?"

"Haven't told him yet," - Bellamy

She held the line open, as if she began to respond, but paused to change her mind. "Tell him, and let him radio Jackson. But don't let him go on his own-"

"Obviously," cut in Bellamy.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, and if he wants to go, we make a quick trip," she finished curtly.

"You really think that's a smart decision?"

"The more things change, the less my old memories help," hissed Clarke quietly, "but we can't just ignore everything we don't already know about,".

"Yeah, well, you're still more privileged than the rest of us when it comes to info, so maybe you shouldn't be making stupid choices to risk your neck,"

The radio stayed silent, and he knew this time, she wasn't coming back on the line. Dropping the priceless long distance radio onto the makeshift table harder than was _smart,_ he turned away.

Below, he found the boy in question, tinkering around. Moonshine was store in miscellaneous jugs near the med bay. The supply was looking low, noticed Bellamy vaguely before he focused in on Jasper as soon as his boots hit the ground off the ladder.

"We need to talk," grunted Bellamy.

"Isn't that normally a girl's line?" piped up Jasper, looking up from where he'd been rearranging the jugs.


	6. Quarter Past Midnight

**AN:** Gah, I hope somebody is still reading despite how irregular the updates are. Sorry! Editing is awful.

 _Previously-_

 _90 days until the end_

The radio stayed silent, and he knew this time, she wasn't coming back on the line. Dropping the priceless long distance radio onto the makeshift table harder than was _smart,_ he turned away.

Below, he found the boy in question, tinkering around. Moonshine was store in miscellaneous jugs near the med bay. The supply was looking low, noticed Bellamy vaguely before he focused in on Jasper as soon as his boots hit the ground off the ladder.

"We need to talk," grunted Bellamy.

"Isn't that normally a girl's line?" piped up Jasper, looking up from where he'd been rearranging the jugs.

 **Chapter Six**

Quarter Past Midnight, Bastille

* 3 day time jump *

 _87 days until the end_

A series of beeping paused, gave one last single, long tone, and stopped.

Raven was flitting around the command center, ensuring everything was off, tucked away safe, and snug.

"Strip the lab, the lighthouse, and the mansion of all tech you can carry. Wagons will meet you once you return to the mainland, but you're going to have to figure things out on the island. You can keep doing trips as long as possible, but prioritize just in case," reiterated Clarke smoothly.

"On it," chirped Raven, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Clarke beamed at her, reaching out to hug her impulsively, which Raven startled at, but returned, light and airy, a heartbeat later.

"Wait, actually, hang on!" Once she had the other girl's attention again, Raven grinned brightly.

"Can I just stay on the island till it's done?" she asked.

Clarke pulled away to look at her, and her brow furrowed in thought.

"You don't need to come back to work on the bunkers?"

Raven shook her head, and smirked.

"Nah, we're good to go really. The door's repaired at Mt. Weather, and Second Dawn is fine, besides Monty still messing around in the aquaponics farm. I mean, I've got some ideas for upgrades, but we've got time, and they aren't necessary," Raven said.

Clarke shrugged slightly. "Alright, you can work out a schedule with Indra,"

"Yes!"

"Be in front of the tower at sunrise, remember?"

"Yea, yea, rise and shine, stupid o'clock, I know, I know, princess pushy!" retorted Raven, shoving at the blonde's shoulder to get her out the doorway finally.

Laughing, Clarke waved as she left the command center, and out of Second Dawn, leaving Raven alone in the quiet with only computers for company.

 _Polis tower – Skaikru's floor 86 days until the end_

Stripping off a few layers confidently, she was well aware of Monty's appreciative gaze, even with the nervous, grim set to his mouth. With a grin, Harper lay down onto the couch with her back exposed. Resting her head with her face turned to the side away from him, she closed her eyes, and relaxed. Pulling first a low table, and then a hard stool over to lean over her, Monty rolled out the oiled leather healers kit Clarke had insisted he claim from the reparations after Murphy's death.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, not for the first time today.

"Don't wimp out on me." teased Harper, waiting patiently. Bare expect for the rough cotton legging, she wiggled her ass playfully. Monty smiled despite his misgivings briefly, but frowned again after only a moment.

"You could wait until Wick comes up with something. He and Raven can't argue forever."

She shook her head as well as she could without rising up.

"They're busy enough. And besides, before they left, Raven said something about staying on the island for a while. Anyway, I want this to be grounder-style. And you're the one I trust."

Sighing, he admitted defeat, knowing better than to try to stop her. Pulling out a small bottle of his own, strong brewed moonshine, he cleaned first his hands, and then her back.

"Here goes nothing." he muttered.

He moved slow, with precise motions, and fixedly remembering the lecture he'd sought at the healers' center. Sitting back, Monty assessed the outcome. Her shoulder was flushed a brilliant red from the abuse, and he wanted to bandage it even though apparently the grounders didn't always do so. She needed a chance to see it first, though, and he grabbed the mirrors he'd found for just this reason.

It was no work of art- he'd insisted he wasn't an artist, but his hand was steady, and his eye was good. The palm sized seven pointed star was high up on her right shoulder, hollow, with sharp lines. Beneath it were three crooked lines of miniatures falling from it- thirteen of them. The mark of Skaikru, the others had decided.

Hurrying, she found Caliban just inside the Polis limits, but instead of overseeing WHAT, he was glaring darkly, with a fidgeting teenager, poised seemingly upon the line between sullen and defiant, walking reluctantly at his side. Clarke hesitated, considering backing away, but Caliban had already spotted her, nodding deeply in greeting, and she smiled wryly in return. With a sharp cuff to the back of the boy's head, he increased his pace to meet her mid-way between them. The boy didn't even flinch, but at least dropped his sullen gaze to the ground.

"Good day, Wanheda," greeted Caliban gruffly.

Smiling wider, she returned his greeting, but continued on, ignoring the boy as Caliban did for the moment, "have I interrupted?"

"Never. Apparently, my impulsive, disruptive second has been sent here to me because Anya has grown tired of his nonsense at home,"

"Ah, you could introduce me anyway, if he is your second,"

"Wanheda, Prisa kom Skaikru, Mountain Slayer, this is my troublesome second who ought to know better how to act by his age, Yulian kom Trikru,"

"It's nice to meet you, Yulian kom Trikru. Your seda is a dear associate, and friend, of mine," murmured Clarke warmly, with a vague amusement at the boy's expression- his sullenness seeming to have mixed with curiosity.

Caliban sighed deeply. "Never mind the boy. What has brought you out here?"

"Runners have come with messages about spotting an army!" blurted Clarke.

When they reached the tower, Caliban sent off his second to the training yards, with a quietly growled warning to follow all orders given to him. From there, Clarke led the way, the Trikru warrior a half-step behind her, to the throne room. It had taken more than a half-hour to reach him, and back again, but Clarke couldn't force herself feel badly for making Lexa wait.

She slipped inside the throne room door, without waiting for the guards to open them for her. Behind her, she knew Caliban was following as requested. Lexa's servant had repeated the commander's desire to speak with Clarke _before_ anyone else, regarding the runners, but the blonde had ducked that neatly with her escort's presence.

"Commander," called Clarke, seeing the shape of Lexa, in full armor, standing upon the balcony.

In quick, long steps, Lexa emerged from beneath the tattered remnants of the century-old curtains. Her gaze hardened at the sight of the warrior standing between Clarke's back, and the double doors, but when her bright eyes landed upon Clarke's tight expression, she smoothed her own out pointedly.

"According to multiple sources-" began Lexa, ignoring Caliban's presence, "there are many dozens of people marching, well supplied, towards Polis. At their estimated rate, they'll be here in no more than two hours,"

"Who are they?" demanded Clarke, rushing forwards to meet Lexa near the throne, though the commander remained standing, stiffly, and her gaze fixed solely upon the blonde.

"Unknown. Which is why I am... requesting you leave, now. Return to your camp,"

"Hell no,"

"Polis may be in need of reinforcements if this is Azgeda coming-"

"So we need to prepare- not send anyone capable of holding a weapon. If anybody is going to be evacuated, it ought to be the children, the elderly, and the sick,"

"Who will need massive amounts of protection if they're to travel now. We can't spare the warriors-"

"So we're preparing for battle. What should I do?"

"Clarke, be reasonable," pleaded Lexa.

"I can't just run, and leave the city to it's fate. Not now. The temple must be protected at all costs,"

Lexa bowed her head, breathing rapidly, and ducking away from those hard, ice chip eyes- accusing her even with her own eyes closed against them.

She turned away, putting her back to Clarke. Walking slowly away without looking back. Gradually, her breath slowed, as she mediated over the issue. Clarke remained silent, waiting, but she knew she wouldn't run away- no matter what Lexa decided.

"Then that's where you will be stationed. Titus will bring the novitiates, and an unit of seconds. They, with the Order of the Flame will be inside as a last line of defense. My warriors will be stationed outside. If... all hope falls, enter the bunker, and seal it," ordered Lexa. Clarke opened her mouth to cut in, but Lexa held up her hand, and glared sharply. "That's an order from your commander,"

Clarke's upper lip curled back in a snarl, but she held silent as Lexa turned to Caliban, acknowledging him for the first time in this argument.

"Caliban kom Trikru, your orders are to remain with Wanheda, and if the city falls, to bring her inside the bunker, and have it sealed- at any cost,"

The warrior's voice came from just behind Clarke- "Sha, heda,".

"We can fit twelve hundred people in that bunker- we can't seal it up with just a handful in there!" snapped Clarke, her silence finally shattering.

"No, as you said, what we must not do is allow it to allow into Azgeda hands," countered Lexa, her voice flat and monotone.

 _Dawn - 86 days until the end (4 days after Azgeda meeting)_

(when Nia questions Roan as to why he has brought a healer, Remy, along for the procession,"

"The last time an Azgeda prince rode north in winter without a royal healer, it did not end well," rumbled Roan.

"Go," ordered Nia, scowling all the while.

Roan left her. Turning his back upon the queen, without a nod, without farewell, and without even a glance. He could feel the spy crowding him at one side before he reached his horse.

"That was a low blow- even for you," hissed Echo.

"My brother, my right. Not like you know anything of that, am I correct, spy? Have you even seen your brother since the sky princess freed you from the mountain?" growled Roan.

She snarled, barely restraining her temper in respect of his position as the queen's son.

He scoffed at the holding of her temper, and known vicious tongue.

As he walked away, he looked back at the spy behind him.

"You ought to," he ordered lowly.

"What?" she spat.

"See your brother. Before he goes to war,"

Echo's face remained scowling.

"Is that an order, your highness?" - Echo.

"I hear he has another son now," - Roan.

"Yes," snapped Echo. A pause, she scowled again. "I've heard," she corrected.

As Roan returned to the front of the assembling riding party, Remy leaned close.

"Was that truly wise?"

He eyed the healer plainly. ""It's good for her to be reminded I am the last of King Theo's blood,"

He mounted up, and gave the order for the rest to join him.

He gazed out of the gates, to the capital. Fron Tenac spread out before him, from the chateau's gates, as far as the eye could see.

Already, villagers were queuing up on either side of the main through-way- used by riders leaving the chateau. How they knew he'd be riding out today, he didn't know. But every time he'd ever left the palace he'd grown up for any journey, they'd done the same. They'd seen Cyril off the same way, when he'd left home and never returned. Their mother had not even allowed him to be brought home, but instead had returned the messengers who'd come with news of his death to have him carried straight to the capital's city of the dead.

Royal guards had borne him to rest.

Not even having his family bear him had she allowed the wayward prince.

Seiku took up the place at the prince's side, looking to him.

Roan eyed him carefully before greeting the warrior, one of the only ones he'd known before exile.

"I am glad you are accompanying this journey," rumbled the prince gravely.

Seiku inclined his head in acknowledgment.

 _Polis- The temple of the Order of the Flame_

The temple was oddly muted. Torches hoisted onto the walls provided extra light even in the fading late afternoon sun. The Order of the Flame had positioned themselves in the first room, spaced out evenly in rows, upon their knees, weapons in hand, kneeling silently in mediation, and lead the novitiates into joining them. Even Charlotte, with a long glance thrown at Clarke, had followed, kneeling on the other side of Gaia, opposite Aden, in the last row. The half-dozen seconds were standing at parade rest in the front row- Yulian kom Trikru, oddly flushed, among them. Clarke knew that Titus was at Lexa's side, while Nathan, and Wells were posted just outside the temple's main entrance along with several others at each entrance, and along the perimeter.

Alone in the interior chamber, sitting with their backs against the wall behind the bunker's hatch, Caliban and Clarke waited.

"I've been on Earth longer without him, than he was on Earth at all. I never wanted him to die for me,"

"If Azgeda brings war, the coalition will fall. The ties are too frail between too many clans, and the heda's control only so strong now without the mountain to unite against," explained Caliban.

"I will back the coalition, and commander, and stand with Trikru if it comes to It, but will the clans really fall apart so badly?"

"Delfikru is a prosperous clan, and a good ally of Trikru," announced Clarke's escort blandly, with his eyes fixed ahead, watching the path before them.

Clarke hesitated, chewing at her bottom lip. "Ulrin is a good man, I think," she admitted uncertainly.

He nodded heavily, without glancing over at her. "If I had a daughter, I would watch her join with him in peace,".

It was a benediction, Clarke thought, dazed at the sentiment.

"But Trikru will not live to see you bound against your will, Wanheda. Marry who you will, or not, and your choice will be backed by steel, and blood if need be," promised Caliban.

Clarke leaned against his shoulder.

"You're a good friend, Caliban kom Trikru," she whispered.

"Can the city hold against Azgeda?" asked Clarke.

Caliban grunted. He took so long to answer, that Clarke didn't think he would.

"The ice queen is bloodthirsty, and vicious. Her people have the choice of living in the relatively temperate southern regions of Azgeda, and every one of their number being trained as warriors from birth. Or living deeper into the north, where there is ice and snow even in summer, if they are not willing to fight in the army. She's aging, and her hold weakens as she grows too old to hold the army's loyalty... but with her son returned to her side... Azgeda will answer the call to arms. Every last one of them able to hold an ax. The prince has swayed matters in her favor,"

"So... the city will come down to how many clans will answer the commander's call?" realized Clarke.

"Sha, Wanheda. If every clan stands true, we will far outnumber the ice nation, and can hold Polis. If not... Azgeda is as vicious as their queen," murmured Caliban.

"Of course, you know Azgeda, and I don't, but Prince Roan and I... we bound ourselves in blood as allies, before he returned to Azgeda,"

"I know Azgeda," agreed Caliban gruffly. "But not the prince," he conceded.

Somewhere outside the temple, a horn blew, and Caliban tensed, before rising to his feet. His sword in hand, he stood at the ready. Scrambling up, Clarke fidgeted with her own weaponry. Her sword sheathed at one side, and a handgun on her another hip, with a rifle slung over her shoulder, she gripped it so tight, she had to force herself to let it hang from it's strap when her hands began to cramp.

"If the force is as small as was reported, they won't get anywhere near this temple," vowed Caliban lowly.

"Then why the lockdown?"

Caliban let out a harsh sigh. "Runners can only tell what they know. Not the whole of anything,"

 _On the limits of Polis_

Octavia's shoulders were taunt and pulled up high as she stalked forwards, awaiting disaster to strike.

She led the way, with the heavy footsteps of a hundred people who'd gone soft, or been raised soft, on the rig, ratcheting up her nerves higher with each passing second.

Leading the hundred chosen of Floukru into Polis was one of the least pleasant duties she'd undertaken on the ground- in this life, or the last. Not a single person over 40 had asked for a spot, but there were plenty of 30-somethings in the caravan- parents, healers, crafters... The sick, with chronic or terminal illnesses, though Octavia was sure that many of the illnesses weren't that dire as many that had chosen to remain behind were seemingly fine adults in their 20's or 30's. The disabled, too, had declared their intent to stay behind from the onset, some for things as minor as a limp remaining from a poorly healed knee injury. Some, simply, stepped away from the meeting Luna had presided over, asking the community to decide what to do about the limited spots.

" _Let the families go together",_ one young man had murmured to Luna, before he left.

So Floukru dwindled down to 100.

And so they followed Luna, who walked beside Octavia serenely.

 _Just inside the Polis limits_

"What are you doing here?" growled Lexa.

Costia smirked slightly. "Waiting,"

"Go back to the centre," - Lexa

"Healers go where they must," - Costia

"But seconds _obey,"_ snarled Lexa

Costia shrugged her wrap off one side- revealing the fresh, midnight black ink around her left upper arm just below her shoulder. It was not the traditional healers' band of Trikru, but the crossed knives over a tiny bottle that sat dead center on the side of her arm which always made up the center of such bands. It was hastily done, lacking the details that could be added later, and painfully fresh- her dark skin obviously inflamed around it, and gleaming with an copious applied, green tinged ointment.

"Sabine has released you," murmured Lexa, aghast.

Costia smiled, bright, and wolfish.

"All hands, at ready," reminded the young healer.

"If the worst comes, you will be needed at the centre,"

"If the worst comes, we will meet it here, together," countered Costia kom Trikru.

Lexa's hard mask slipped. Fracturing. Her eyes did not soften, but a fierce smile lit across her face. She reached out an arm, and waited for Costia to clasp it, before she drew the other girl into her embrace. Mindful of the fresh, inky wound, Lexa held her tight, breathing in the smell of her homun.

When Costia stepped back, after letting Lexa hold her for several long moments, she flashed a hard smile, and together, they turned to wait.

They listened to the horns blow when the force was spotted from just outside the city limits, but then, a whistle came. Lexa waited, wondering what the lack of noise meant.

Finally, something, someone, broke through the overgrown paths that provided a naturally barrier for the capital.

The commander was baffled at the sight of Octavia kom Skaikru, sweaty, dusty, weary, and as always, _angry._ Her black braids were tied up away from her neck, and her boots hit the ground with grudging force as she stomped through.

But when the second figure emerged into the city limits, Lexa swore quietly, and griped Costia's hand briefly.

Lexa did not stop until she stood just in front of Luna kom Floukru.

The commander reached out, and gripped the other nightblood's arm, pulling her close.

" _Blood sister,"_ greeted Lexa firmly.

Luna's eyes were wide, and she stood, unbalanced, not understanding.

"Welcome home," announced the commander as she released Luna and took a small step back.

"What's happened to the city?" demanded Octavia.

"Locked down to your lack of sending runners ahead with explanations for such a large caravan moving towards the capital," growled Titus, looming over the group of young women.

"Yea, well, this could have been avoided if you would have let me take a damn radio like I wanted," snarled Octavia.

"Enough!" Lexa's order roared over them.

"Floukru will be fed, and rooms prepared for them here in the tower. There is much to be discussed, Sister," continued Lexa, looking directly at the renegade nightblood.

Luna nodded serenely, but Octavia saw the flashing of her dark eyes towards the tower.

"Yes, there is. Like _all of Floukru knows. Because she told them._ Which is why I couldn't spare even a single warrior to send them ahead, much less send any of Flourku ahead," revealed Octavia grimly.

Titus jerked back as if struck, and Lexa's shoulders stiffened.

Luna smiled, slow and spiteful.

Lexa swallowed hard before nodding curtly.

"It doesn't change that the boat clan receives only a hundred spots- like every other clan. But come, let us talk inside, and have your people tended to. You must have made good time on a hard journey," announced the commander.

As Luna, and Octavia both started off for the tower, Lexa glanced to Titus.

"Move our guests securely into the tower _before_ you release the city from it's lockdown," murmured Lexa quietly before she swept away in a swirl of her tattered scarlet cloak.

 _85 days until the end_

 _Polis, a quarter past midnight_

The radio crackled to life- jolting the commander awake in her cold bed with ease. She crossed the room to the chest she had the radios locked in.

"Polis! Clarke, Commander, anybody! Hundred Camp is evacuating. There's... there's _Fire, as far as we can see. The forest's burning!"_

Bellamy kom Skaikru had _never_ sounded so afraid, in all of Lexa's dual memories.

Having watched both several of Skaikru, along with David kom Arkadia, use the tech devices, Lexa carefully responded, a bit hesitantly, "This is the Commander, I have heard your message. Go to Ton DC, they will take you in," assured Lexa.

The radio crackled with words coming through for several seconds, before she heard coughing, and finally, Bellamy's voice again.

"Commander, I don't think you understand, even from the top of the dropship, all we see is fire in every direction... I don't... I don't know we're going to make it out of here-"

"Cover your nose, and mouths, as you did to protect yourselves from the mountain's gas. Walk low, or crawl, but move swiftly," ordered Lexa sharply...

"Why aren't they responding?"

Never before had Lexa ever allowed so many people, for any reason, to enter her private chambers. Yet now- most of the Skaikru currently in Polis, along with Titus, and Indra were crowded around the trunk she'd used to lock away the radios. It was now being used as a table.

Monty fidgted with the radio. "Smoke can cause interference sometimes,"

"How much smoke does it take?" Clarke asked, flat and miserable.

"A lot," he admitted.

"Azgeda," hissed Lexa, "this is Azgeda's play,"

"there will be more to Azgeda's strategy that burning Skaikru land," Indra said.

Wells tried the radio again.

Nothing.

Clarke made for the door, "Ok, ok, I'm leaving. Now."

"I'm having a party readied, but-"

"Send them after me, but I'm going now,"

Miller ran after her, first, and easily caught up with her. Together, they rushed for the lift, their boots pounding on the dirt-covered marble floors, and downwards.

Blood was rushing in her ears. _Fire. All we can see is fire, all around us. Clarke's_ calloused hands shook.

"Nathan's coming with me, and Charlotte, too. You, stay with Octavia," decided Clarke, as she threw her cloth and leather saddle hastily across her shying mare.

All around her, the stables were flaring to life in bursts of quick activity. Clarke was leaving _now,_ but she knew Lexa was sending out men, who'd been given an hour to prepare. That was _fine._ It would take an hour to have twenty men, and their horses, and extra supplies for gods only knew what awaited them, readied. More would follow- healers were now being woken, and runners being sent out across the expansion of Trikru lands. Fire was a late summer, and early fall's problem. Late winter, when only the evergreens had leaves left to catch, and the forest floor had been soaked by snow so many times, it was never a time fires troubled them much.

Whispers filled the stable, _Azgeda._

"Gaia will be riding with you. She wished to visit Mount Weather, so she can purify it." explained Wells with a brief twitch that might have been a smile.

"I will assist however I am able," added the girl in question, looking up through her lashes at Clarke.

"Safety in numbers, right? Sounds good." said Clarke, and she flashed a smile at them, trying to aim for a patience she didn't feel.

"And, uh, the commander gave us back the radios," continued Wells, a bit sheepishly, handing one over to her.

Clarke grasped it gratefully, offering a pained smile to her once-best friend.

By the time Clarke was mounted, and made it to the city limits, the riding party had grown larger than she'd expected. She, Miller, Caliban, and Gaia were joined by Charlotte, and Yulian, as both seconds had thrown themselves onto their horses hastily, but also Lincoln, leading a unit of Lexa's warriors that he'd been able to ready in time.

Towards Hundred Camp, and the fire, Clarke set a punishing pace, but everyone already knew there was nothing they could really do.

It would take too long to reach home.


	7. I See Fire

AN: I'd still LOVE a beta, you know, hint hint, just saying.

Thanks to EBB – Sonnet 43, pwrmom2, emlah, and of course, Jo Hamel for reviews on chapter 6! I definitely intend to finish, though I know I am slow with updates.

 **Chapter 7**

I See Fire

 _85 days till the end_

 _Hundred Camp_

Zoe Monroe hadn't quite volunteered. It was more that she informed Atom that she would be taking the midnight watch shift, permanently. With the ice nation clearly an enemy of the coalition they found themselves within, the watch was bumped back up to the pre-fall of Mt. Weather priority level. The first night she'd showed up for the 10pm shift change, Atom had assigned her the platform beside the gate- effectively designating her the shift's leader.

Really, the shift wasn't too bad. Atom had to scramble, and threaten, to fill the ranks for the shift, as everyone wanted the late morning, mid-day, or afternoon shifts. It meant she mostly had under her charge either the most dedicated, or the most in trouble. Either way, it meant they didn't bother messing with Monroe. She even liked the midnight shift, truthfully. That was at least partially because she got to listen as camp shut down each night, and silence grudgingly fell. Then she could listen to the hooting of owls, somehow swooping just overhead, and the scurrying racket of little nocturnal beasts. Otherwise, she liked it because of how little she saw of Bellamy since she took it on. Thanks to the mad genius mechanic, the clock in the dropship ran off the solar panels on the roof, and alarms went off every four hours for the watch schedule. The watch was the only thing anybody used the clock for anymore. Somehow marking time by the light of the day was easier. Jasper and Atom were both alright, and they were the two who traded off getting up at the 2am alarm to rouse the early morning shift. Whichever of the two's turn it was took over the gate tower from her, and she was just glad that Bellamy only ever took the late morning or midday shifts.

The number on shift varied, by how many people could be dragged onto duty in the middle of the night, but Atom always tried to have at least 5 per shift since the summit. Mostly, people didn't see how the faraway incident would translate to their little camp in the forest, so it was harder than it ought to be. Sometimes Atom ended up taking three, or even four shifts a day to keep them all covered. Monroe might be willing to endure an extra shift, except that with the afternoon hunting, and the midnight watch, she slept hard all morning even with all the noise of the hundred that began at dawn. The midnight shift was frigid, and up on the tower, she didn't get to pace around to keep warm and stretched out. So by 2am, she was sore and stiff enough that she just wanted to sleep.

Burning through the night with careful tending, the torch hoisted on the metal rail of the tower offered a little heat at least. Once the camp hid away in the cabin and dropship, the main fire was let to burn low, under the watchers care, till morning. With the heavy fog tonight, she couldn't even see the low fire very well, much less feel any warmth from it so far away.

Around the camp, the trees were thick, so she couldn't see much of the stars except just above her. They didn't look like home anymore anyway. Into the silence of the night, Monroe coughed. The fog was thickening, and it had been a dry dusty night, with the wind howling in her ears to begin with. Usually, the cold, dry nights felt bracing- as if it was easier to stay awake in the crisp, cold air that kept her lungs aware of every inhale, but tonight, Monroe didn't even notice as she became more sluggish. Her head ached. The watcher rubbed at her stings. Dust must have gotten into them from the wind. Huffing out a breathe, she leaned upon the tower's rail. It held her weight, and she closed her stinging eyes.

Tucked into the dropship, the dozen or so occupants rolled and trembled, snuffling in their troubled sleep. Their restlessness building. The thick dropship door lay open upon the ground. The parachute curtains blew inwards.

The sole cabin in the camp held the mostly quiet, slumbering masses. It was a dry night following a dry week or more, so the tarps, made from old parachutes, had been tied up out of the way to let in fresh air. Even as awkwardly set as the rough, but thick door, and the slated, barred windows they offered more protection. In tight huddled rows, the dozens of teenagers slept. This early into the night, nightmares had yet to wake any of them. Mumbles and groans, hinted at a growing unease.

Eyes still closed, drifting somewhere between sleep and muddled consciousness, Zoe sniffled. She still leaned wearily upon the scrap metal rail. Her chest heaved, and a whimper escaped, startling her a bit closer to awake. But her eyes were still burning and heavy, and she let them close again. Then jerked awake, nearly going head first over the rail despite how high it was compared to her. Something had woken her, but what? Something..

Someone.

Yelling.

Coughing thickly, her chest heaved in pain. Tried to remember what she'd heard. Her nose was running, she realized. A lazy swipe with her sleeve. The fog was just too thick, she thought. Another sound.

Someone was yelling, she was right.

Monroe turned to look around to figure out where it came from, and her foot slipped.

Grabbing the rail, she was barely hanging on as she fell. Gasping for breathe, she scrambled back up onto the platform again. Someone was yelling. More than one person? She couldn't figure it out- the words sounded muffled.

Her watchers, Zoe understood, finally.

Hollering their names, she stuttered after the first two. Who else was on duty with her tonight? Monroe jumped down from the tower. Though she'd done it hundreds of times, her knees buckled and she hit the ground. First crying out in pain and surprise, she then lay there, coughing. Her feet didn't feel like obeying. She struggled up, and tried to shake the ringing out of her ears. Her watchers were screaming, and getting louder No, closer. Coming in from the back perimeter. Her throat burning, Monroe yelled back to them, still not able to make out their words. She ran to try to find them. Any of them. Coughing hit again.

Behind the dropship, she found two of the four. The fog was so thick it was hard to see them till she nearly tripped over something.

Still yelling hoarsely, one of the youngest watchers, Cade, was on his knees. The boy was shaking the body slumped down on the hard, dry dirt. Monroe grabbed at the fallen watcher, and helped Cade haul him up. Sterling struggled to lift his head, and mumbled something, low, and thick. Cade was muttering something, trying to tell her something as they pulled Sterling forward. Monroe kept trying to understand. Her head throbbed, and Sterling's mouth moved with no sound, Cade was coughing again. When they made it to the corner of the dropship, and she tried to drag Sterling around it, Cade planted his feet. He let go of the other boy's shoulder. Sterling fell upon Monroe. With the weight of the taller kid solely upon her, she went sideways. The dropship wall braced her up at least. Cade pointed back. Monroe grappled with her grip on Sterling. The younger boy reached over, and smacked clumsily at her shoulder. When she looked upon, she saw Cade pointing, back from where he'd come. With her hands full as she tried to keep Sterling upright, her stinging eyes and running nose wet her face. Craning her neck, Monroe finally looked out over the back wall. The younger watcher's words finally hit her.

"I see fire!"

Through the bare trees, and sparse evergreens, she saw hell in the distance. Glowing orange and red, lighting up the forest, terrifying close.

There was no fog tonight.

It was smoke.

And it was already choking them.

"We've got to get everyone into the dropship!" she cried, her burning throat making her hoarse, forcing the words out anyway.

Cade grabbed Sterling's collar, and began dragging him around the corner.

Through the dropship's entryway, and into the corner set aside as a medbay, they dropped Sterling onto the metal floor. On some level, Monroe registered that he didn't even make a sound. She tried yelling to wake the restlessly sleeping row- Bellamy, Atom, Collette, and Jasper... and Monroe couldn't remember who else, nor make out their identities from the row of furs and blankets. Her throat ached, and the air in here was thick- contaminated with the curtain blowing in. Monroe pulled a knife from her boot, and slammed it's blunter side into the metal table. The sound of metal on metal clanged, and echoed through the lower level of the ship. She did it again. Another, till Bellamy was grumbling, and rising from his spot on the end of the sleeping row. He shook the shoulder of the guy at his side, Atom, Monroe realized a heartbeat later, when the other watcher stumbled to his feet even he even really opened his eyes.

"Fire," croaked Cade, and Monroe nodded, watching to see that Bellamy understood, before she ran back out into the smoke. The cabin had to be woken. So intent upon this, she didn't even realize when the sound of Cade, then Bellamy, and Atom's, and others still, more slowly, followed after her.

At the cabin's front door, she paused, coughing, bent over, trying to fight it and losing the battle. Tears streamed from her eyes, and her throat... the pain scorched. Large hands gripped her shoulders. Monroe flinched, but let herself be pulled upright as the fit eased. Her eyes stung too much to open, till she felt cloth pressing onto her face. Blinking quickly, she found Bellamy leaning in close, and wrapping soft cloth, torn from a shirt, around her mouth, and nose. His hands brushed her cheeks, and then she felt the tug as he tied it behind her head.

"Thanks," she muttered, before ducking around him to throw open the heavy door. She let it slam into the wall behind it, knowing that would at least start the process of waking everyone.

Evacuating the cabin was faster than she'd feared. Few of the dozens of kids here seemed as muddled as the watch shift, or even the dropship residents. They grabbed food, and weapons, and their own furs, and blankets, and packs, carrying everything they within reach into the ship as they scurried.

Bellamy waited till everyone was up, before heading back to the dropship, calling out orders for water, and meat, to be brought in by anyone who could handle another trip out into the thickening smoke. Three trips out was all he could do, and as Atom began to cough up blood, Bellamy waited at the door for the inward flow to cease. He counted to ten, and again, and when no one else appeared into sight from the layers of smoke, he threw the lever. As the door slowly rose, and thudded shut with a finality, Bellamy whispered a prayer that he hadn't left anyone outside. With the smoke burning their throats, and the noise of everyone moving about inside the echoing dropship, it'd been a hard bet if they'd hear someone from outside if they called out.

Water was drank from buckets, and waterskins, and jugs, passed around. The coughing didn't end, but at least, Bellamy hoped, it wouldn't get worse.

Collette yelled for everyone to sit down, and sit still, for a headcount. She went around, counting out loud, slow, and low. Once she was sure, she returned to Bellamy, still standing beside the door's control, and repeated the headcount anxiously. Squinting against the growing headache, Bellamy slowly, carefully, recalled the numbers of those away, and then repeated their names, slowly... Octavia, Clarke, Wells, Miller, Raven, Wick, Monty, Harper...

"Yeah, not counting them, that's everyone," decided Bellamy. Collette's shoulders dropped in relief, and she left Bellamy alone, going back to where she'd counted Mary, in the medbay corner, between Jasper and Bree.

Bellamy dropped to the floor to sit underneath the lever. Everyone was accounted for. Someone pushed a twisted, ugly metal cup of cool water into his hand. Automatically, he drank. The water stung, but then, it soothed. He needed to call Polis. In a minute.

 _Azgeda_

The night was clear, and the stars were bright. Bright enough, with the nearly full moon, in fact, to travel by. Sunset had passed them by some six hours or so ago. None of his companions had dared do more than grumble too low for him to make out the words. The darkness hadn't been the only reason for their slow pace, anyway. It had been three years since he'd been free to walk this land, and the place he sought was purposefully... out of the way, to begin with. It had taken time, and wrong paths, to find it. There were many blackened, ivy covered massive relics here, a city from before, lain to waste, and the air was heavy with ghosts. Roan held up a hand, and called out for a halt. Answering groans greeted the reprieve, but he was certain they did not yet know where they were.

After a couple hours rest as they'd ate from their packs, Roan had pushed his procession half through the night to put as much distance between himself, and Fron Tenac, as they could. Home, he thought, bitterness creeping in. Within his grasp, and gone again, just that swiftly.

Here though, he dismounted. Eyed the thick brush before him. The overgrowth was promising. With a sharp tug upon the bridle, and a steady heave upon the leads, he pulled his reluctant horse into it.

"Roan, is this-" began the healer, muted by exhaustion, and distrust, but she broke off.

Seiku was already following the prince.

Behind them, Roan heard machetes being drawn, and whacking, in the dark, to clear a path. He hadn't bothered to do so, and wasn't quite happy about it being done. It would drawn too much notice to forbid such however. He let it go. It was not as if there was a current need for stealth. Not when he traveled with royal guards in his retinue. No commoners would trouble him. Truthfully, Roan thought, if he was to die tonight, or on this procession, it'd more likely be poison in his cup. A slit throat while he slept. An ax buried into his spine under the cover of darkness. At his mother's orders.

In the darkness, it had been difficult to make out one ivy covered hulking ruin from another, but when they made it through the brush, to see the great, arched opening, wide enough for four horses, and tall enough for a man three times over... Roan knew he'd found it.

The walls rose greyish and blackened, four stories high, and blanketed with winding, prickly ivy. There was no roof, much less covered windows or doorways. If a floor remained, it was buried under so many layers of dirt, leaves, and moss that there was no sign of it. He continued inside anyway, hesitating long enough for the few men who carried torches to catch up, and took one from them. The massive open space could have sat hundreds of men in close ranks.

Only a few feet inside the hall, all the way to left wall, sat a rusty, long, iron rack. There Roan tied his horse, at the farthest point from the yawning archway. Tack loosened, he left the gelding there and moved away to allow the others to follow his example.

Striding confidently towards the back of the great hall, he wondered if this place had been disturbed in the years he'd been gone. No sign of it appeared. Yet that could have been by design.

Long before it had been an outpost for his grandfather's army, this place had been something grand, but all that had survived was the name. Notredame.

The pair of towers offered only higher walls, with gaping holes, and the shadows of greatness passed.

A narrow gap of a space, where two walls seemed to meet, but didn't, offering a shadowed hall, and a handful of small rooms, that even a degree of their ceilings left. All the way down the hall, till he now stood at the far corner from where he'd entered the back chamber, Roan turned into the last of the doors. The last time he'd been here, he hadn't known he'd been gone three years.

Roan smirked at the sight.

Looking untouched, chest, and deer skinned wrapped bundles lined the walls. The lot was protected not just by the half of a ceiling that remained. Thinking ahead, he'd covered the floor in here with skins atop the thick moss. Then rigged up tents to cover most of the room, just high enough for him to walk beneath. The coverings were rotting by now, he knew by the smell. It appeared that they'd done their job long enough for him to return. Crossing the doorway, Roan bent to check the heavy, iron locks upon each chest, and laughed, low, and deep in his chest. Intact. The key weighed little, but he felt it's presence around his neck anyway. All made to accept the same key, by his order.

Ghosts might waft through the air of the forgotten cities, as the stories of the ice nation claimed, but that was protection in it's own ways. All the protection his hoard had needed. If war came, he had the coin, and the gold, and the jewels to buy some loyalty for himself. With a smirk lingering, he turned on his heel.

Outside, into the main hall, he eyed the company- Remy tending to the horses, and Seiku watching silently as the rest laid out bedrolls throughout the hall.

"Rest, till I wake," barked Roan. The hall fell still. "Remy, we're sleeping back here. Now," he added.

Hesitating, Remy her pack up from the ground beside the horses, and glanced over at the sight of the royal guards leering.

"Seiku, at the back," ordered Roan, his eyes not own the captain, but the rest.

Stiffening, her shoulders, she crossed the length of the hall, ignoring them all. Seiku grabbed his own, and the prince's, packs. Behind the healer, he carried them towards Roan. Half-way across the long, wide hall, he took a torch from one of the sentries.

Remy slid around the prince's wide shoulders, with a sharp glare at his smug face, to venture into the darkness. Roan lingered long enough to accept his pack from Seiku, and watch the warrior lay out his, directly beside the narrow opening that led to the back corridor. The space was quite effectively blocked. With nods between them, Roan left to follow the healer, who'd only made it a few steps down the hallway without light.

"All the wall to the other end," he prompted her.

She didn't turn to face him, but with the torchlight helping, she continued on. The corridor was long, and narrow, musty, and half-covered by a sagging ceiling. An unpleasant crunch beneath one of her boots did not help.

At the far end, Roan grunted to point out the room, which still had half a stinking wood door hanging from one, rusted hinge. As he held the torch up in the doorway, the tiny room's contents came into sight. Remy gasped, but a sharp nudge at her shoulder quieted her. Got her moving back inside. The royal healer might listen long enough for an explanation, the prince hoped.

 _Hundred Camp_

"What are we gonna do?"

The shout came from deep in the crowd. It was echoed desperately.

Bellamy tried the radio again. In vain. The call had ended, and he hadn't been able to get it to work again. He swallowed. Hard. Winced at the burst of pain it brought.

"We can't stay here," he announced, his eyes stung, and throat throbbed as proof.

In the dead, panicked silence that met his words, all eyes fell upon him.

But protests rose up, only seconds later. Frantic cries tore from scratchy throats, as the implication hit them.

Leave the dropship.

"The back walls are already getting hot," yelled Atom. It cost him another coughing fit, and from close at his side, Collette eyed the flecks of blood that landed on the sleeve he covered his mouth with. She rose her gaze to meet Bellamy's.

"Everybody got a look, right? A fire this big isn't just gonna stop," growled Bellamy, his voice rougher with each word. He pushed through the crush of kids towards the medbay.

Ignoring the volley of denial and protest, of terror, around him, he grabbed what he could, beginning to add to the packs he could reach. He moved to the little makeshift cabinet Clarke tended to so carefully. There was a wide, deer hide pack, empty, beside it, and Bellamy grabbed a couple handfuls of bandages to throw into the bottom of the pack. Then he began dropping the breakable contents inside, and more carefully, tucked Clarke's notebooks inside. Someone scooted past him. Bellamy looked over to see Jasper adding things to his own pack, with a crooked smile when their eyes caught.

As they strapped the packs across their shoulders, Bellamy turned away, letting Mary help Jasper.

"Pair up, and get ready to move out. We'll head for Ton DC," ordered Bellamy, above the din. He had to repeat himself twice before they all heard.

"But there's fire that way!" yelled someone faceless in the crowd.

"There's fire in every direction!" another cut in.

"Like it's encircling us, on purpose!"

"Shut up!" hollered Monroe. Her head was still pounding, and the yelling was making it worse.

"Yeah. It is all around us. That's why we can't stay here!"

Bellamy's words didn't calm the frenzy at all. Someone broke from the crowd, pushing others of their way, and scurried up the ladder. Another kid followed, and soon, half the crowd was jostling for position trying to get upwards.

"Heat rises!" yelped Jasper. "Heat RISES! That's worse! No, no, no, bad idea!"

"It's a dropship! Made to survive heat. We survived in it to get down here!" countered Bree, desperately, from the near the top of the ladder.

"Most of the tech's dead, and we don't have anyone to fix that!" Bellamy reminded harshly.

"It's still smarter than going out there!" yelled another of the watchers, having elbowed another kid in the gut to get up onto the ladder quicker.

"I can't drag you all, but dammit, be smart about this!" yelled Bellamy.


	8. Fire Meets Fate

_Previously:_

 _Hundred Camp_

"It's a dropship! Made to survive heat. We survived in it to get down here!" countered Bree, desperately, from the near the top of the ladder.

"Most of the tech's dead, and we don't have anyone to fix that!" Bellamy reminded harshly.

"It's still smarter than going out there!" yelled another of the watchers, having elbowed another kid in the gut to get up onto the ladder quicker.

"I can't drag you all, dammit. Be smart about this!" yelled Bellamy.

 _Polis_

By the time Clarke was mounted, and made it to the city limits, the riding party had grown larger than she'd expected. She, Miller, Caliban, and Gaia were joined by Charlotte, and Yulian, as both seconds had thrown themselves onto their horses hastily, but also Lincoln, leading a unit of Lexa's warriors that he'd been able to ready in time.

Towards Hundred Camp, and the fire, Clarke set a punishing pace, but everyone already knew there was nothing they could really do.

It would take too long to reach home.

 **Chapter 8**

Fire Meets Fate by Ruelle

 **85 days till the end**

 _Approx. 12:30am_

Water, clothes, whatever they could carry.

What was there to even save that they could carry through the flames.

"Be brave!" Bellamy ordered.

The delinquents squirmed around. Pulled on more layers to hide their skin. Used up the water stock of the dropship wetting their hair. As their hands shook, Bellamy remembered what these had faced, in this life, and in the memories of the chosen few.

"I know you. All of you! You're survivors, that's you whom you are! That's what Skaikru is- survivors! We can do this! We will make it through!" he roared hoarsely over the muddled noise of the hasty preparations.

These kids who'd readied themselves and the camp to face an army, with stiff upper lips, and defiant scowls... wept. Quietly. But they weren't cowering away in the corners, trying to avoid their fate. Somehow fire scared them more than the threat of Azgeda bearing down upon them with axes and fury. Bellamy tried to meet each of their eyes. To memorize their faces so as not to lose track of any.

Slumped against the wall, Monroe waited, her hand already clutching the door's lever. Cade hovered nearby. The young boy winced as his knuckles brushed against the door. Was it his imagination, or was it getting warmer? At his side, Jones braced Sterling a bit, though at least Sterling's blue eyes were open and his feet on the ground. Their spats, and uncertainty forgotten, Bree and Troy tightly held to each other just behind Sterling and Jones. The rest of the delinquents pressed together in a great, squirming clump, hands intertwining. Just as they had as kids when they'd walked on field trips from their classrooms to Argo, or the med bay, or the observation decks, or Go-Sci... They'd always been restless then, too. Especially whenever they left their own station. Bellamy stomped around the huddled mass, and straightened them out into double lines. Readied them to march the moment the ramp hit the ground, like good little soldiers.

Their numbers were uneven. Bellamy would walk untethered. If she'd been here, Bellamy would be looking for that bright golden hair, reaching for his partner's hand as they waited for the door to drop. But she wasn't here. She hardly ever is. Like the ghost of Clarke's grief, Bellamy imagined Murphy, mouth covered just as he'd done during the outbreak, shifting restless in the line of delinquents. Could practically _see_ the kid squeezing Clarke's hand- preparing impatiently to drag her through the flames and the smoke if necessary. Or carry her. Bellamy remembered how he'd carried their princess from Arkadia's hold. Shit, he had to get a grip. She wasn't here, and neither was Murphy, and the world had narrowed down to their camp, and escaping it. Their home had became a death trap.

How many more ghosts would haunt them, come tomorrow?

Bellamy maneuvered his way to the front of the queue, touching arms, and squeezing shoulders, trying to brace them up, at this last moment of fleeting safety.

Touching Monroe's shoulder, he nodded at her weary, questioning glance.

She threw the lever down.

"Stay together! We've gotta find a way out!" ordered Bellamy over the sound of the door creaking down steadily.

The door landed with a terrifying thud.

Nobody moved as the rush of smoke engulfed them.

"Once more into the breach, my friends,"

He stood to the side of the door, watching his flock descend. With a pang, he remembered ducking into the flow of kids loading ONTO the dropship, only months ago. He'd grabbed a hold of a girl he later learned was named Fox, and hauled her impatiently onboard, anxious. Marcus Kane had stood by, and not questioned Bellamy's appearance, as that man had watched the delinquents' progress silently. Since then, they were Bellamy's charges. It was all on him now.

Down they went. Their ordeal just beginning.

By the time their feet hit the dirt, they realized in waves- the gate wasn't the way out, and the wall might not be either. The flames, closest in the back when first discovered, had circled the camp by igniting the wooden spikes of their fence.

The cabin, that Clarke said they'd never had a chance to even begin the first time around, was already engulfed. Their home on the ground.

The wall and gate of Hundred Camp looked like the gates to hell.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here... Bellamy hunched his shoulders.

They were utterly surrounded.

Last of the dropship, unfortunately having to leave it open, Bellamy didn't realize for a moment where Monroe was already leading the head of pack.

He'd told the dropship crew to find a way to shut down the tunnels' access. Raven had offered to use a tiny bomb to bring it down, but she'd barely got the idea out of her mouth before Octavia had gone off.

"Don't even think about being stupid enough to obey him!" she'd began, leaping up from where she'd been lounging on the moss stuffed cushions, and lunging into Raven's face. The elder brunette skittered backwards before stiffening up.

Her bellowing protests, and snarling orders that no one touch it hadn't made much damn sense to Bellamy, or anyone else, he was sure of it, but Clarke had simply held up her hands for quiet, and declared "Octavia's right, we may need an escape route one day," and Bellamy had folded. The pair of them, he couldn't fight them both. Not every moment of every day. Not when they had such... an advantage over him.

Raven had held her chin up, but did not protest Clarke's intervention.

The blonde had merely continued on with whatever the hell she'd been doing before. As if it was no big deal. Bellamy had been beyond irritated, and purposely made one of the wall towers in a good location to keep an eye on the tunnel's entrance.

Now, Bellamy realized, that Octavia, or Clarke, had obviously given Monroe the idea.

Ducking their heads, and only pushing each other a bit, Skaikru flooded into the tunnel, Monroe at the front, and Cade clinging to her hand. It was narrow, and the entrance created a bottleneck jam, but the kids jostled for position to keep moving. Waiting for them all to get inside, Bellamy turned slowly in place. Looked around their home. It really was home. More than Factory ever had been.

The last pair scuttling down into the darkness, Bellamy risked one last lingering look back.

The flaring wall illuminated their home into a hellish nightmare. The camp was bright as a red dawn. Bright enough to see the cabin's roof, that they hadn't even yet managed to totally waterproof, and now never would, was collapsed. The walls were going up, and the open windows showed there was no hope of saving anything else from there now. The crackling and swoosh of flames burrowing into his ear's, Bellamy bowed his head.

It wouldn't last till dawn. Their home, their home, _gone._

The tunnel's darkness offered the hope and succor of cool earth, and escape. With long strides, Bellamy caught up quickly to the back of the seventy-something pack of kids.

As they marched, two by two, braver now down in the safe smell of dirt, and dry leaves crunching beneath their feet, they were safe. Some stumbled, but still they were clinging tightly to their partner, and so none fell. The darkness they'd feared since falling to earth had become the comfort. So onward they went. Bellamy kept looking over his shoulder, back towards camp, though he could see nothing once they'd made a couple winding turns. The tunnel slated down away from camp, and grew colder than even the early January bitterness above ground. Their free hands tucked into folds of furs, and empty pockets.

The thick echoing of their boots filled the tunnel, comforting in the reminder that though they could see nothing, they were far from alone.

They'd been moving, slow, but steady in the pitch black of the unlit underground, when Bellamy hesitated, pausing. The kids before him didn't notice. Kept moving forwards. But the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, and his gut was churning. The kids ahead had come out of their shocked stupors, some of them at least, enough to make up a ratchet that drifted back to him. That was fine. Good. A relief, really. The delinquents were only ever quiet in disaster, or sound asleep. But now, he wondered at the sounds from _behind._ That he couldn't understand over the echoes of voices and feet.

Blindly, Bellamy pivoted on his heel. Took two long steps back towards camp. Then another few. Seized up when he realized what felt off. Deep breathe, he wanted to turn back, and follow his people... was the tunnel beginning to warm up? Was that light, somewhere from the way they'd come?

One turn. Less than forty steps back.

Till Bellamy got his answers.

Heat, the threat of the chase, and Bellamy's screaming instincts were _right._

Light crept, red and orange, and spiteful, creeping down the dry, dead leaves along the tunnel floor, waist high already.

Groaning, he slammed his hand into the earthen wall confining him, and ignored the dirt and rock that fluttered to the ground. Hitting leaves that would soon feed the fire as it chased them. It wasn't moving fast, down here, at least, but it was still following.

The camp must be absolutely engulfed, by now.

With that thought striking him, Bellamy turned and bolted.

"Move, move your asses!" he screamed, not waiting till he caught up to them.

"Fire in the tunnel! Fire in the tunnel!" yelled Bellamy, as he ran, long legs covering the distance swiftly.

Passing through a split in the path that he didn't know why they'd picked the left side over the right, Bellamy continued yelling for them to hurry. Just beyond it, Atom was waiting with Collette, still holding on, not that Bellamy realized as barreled into them.

It took hardly any time at all for him to slam right into someone, and Bellamy recognized Atom's voice, then Collette's, asking how close the fire was, and together.

Together, they closed the last gap between them and the rest of Skaikru. The steady marching transformed into a panicked stampede. To be trapped deep in the tunnel if the flames caught up with them...

No, swore Bellamy out loud, that couldn't be their fate. The smoke was reaching them now.

By the time Monroe realized the floor was rising up sharply for the exit, there was light waiting for them here too. Faint, but glowing nonetheless. She didn't stop, anyway, and neither did the scurrying pack at her heels. They charged from the exit away into the little clearing it opened onto.

Here there was fire, too.

Pressing close to the right side, behind them it wasn't near so bad, that they could see, but to the left...

Flowed rushing, rapid water.

They'd found the river. It wasn't even the one Clarke had sworn had... sea monsters in it. No, this, Monroe grinned in relief, was their river. The one they'd relied on since they landed, where they drew their water, where their splashed, and cooled themselves before winter.

Here, a couple miles downstream, it was wider than it seemed possible. Far too wide to even make out the opposite bank well in the dim orange glow. Too wide to swim across with the rushing, rapid current certainty. Except they didn't have much choice, probably. They had no way to know had deep it was, only that they could walk down the bank, and end up at shoulder-height in the river only a few steps in. But even across the river, there was the horror of fire rising to the treetops, but it lay behind them, and far to the east.

Mingling with the shadows in the gleam of hell, there was the smoke, lighter here, than when they'd left camp but still enough to burn their throats. Never mind their lungs.

 _ **Follow the river!**_

Bellamy choked out the command. The fire had jumped the river somehow, back towards camp, but looking downstream- looking downstream, across the river past a wide bend, they could see miraculous clear sky and bare, staid trees, through the smoke. They just had to follow the river long enough to outrun the fire, and hope it didn't spread. Here it was wider than they could hope to cross in the rushing current. As if more than a dozen of them had learned to swim yet.

They followed it, just staying far enough off the bank to keep dry ground beneath their feet, as the smoke thickened. The roaring heat chased them. Feet slipped. Splashes of kids falling into the river, and desperately crawling out. Bellamy circled around, just out of the crush, away from the bank, to meet the end of the pack. He ushered the stragglers forwards. Heat nipped at his heels. Scorching ash fell from the burning tree cover above. Shrieks rose.

They were running, but the fire was faster.

Following the river wouldn't work much longer.

They had to go down into it.

"We can't cross yet, but get down the banks. Soak your hair. Your clothes, Go, hurry!" cried Bellamy, pushing against those kids within reach. Even with his hands on them, he couldn't tell who they were in the grey veil of smoke. A pair of boys, scrawny and shorter than him. Could've been nearly any of the delinquents.

Despite easily supporting the far lighter boy, Jones shifted uneasily. The weight of Sterling at his side, and the spitting, angry hiss of the water as it swarmed past them... Jones watched as his people began to hurry into the river on Bellamy's word, and Monroe and Cade's silent example.

With a jerking motion, Jones moved forward, and steered Sterling, with his eyes near closed again, right into another kid's shoulder. When the other boy turned to look, startled, Jones ducked out from under Sterling's arm, and all but shoved him side-ways to the random kid they'd bumped into.

"Hold him up, you hear me?" demanded Jones, but he didn't stick around to see if the kid had caught Sterling, or let him hit the ground.

The protests didn't bring Jones back- he was already moving away. They were all gonna drown in that damn water.

He grabbed a hold of the jackets on another pair, and tugged them closer to the river, and struggled ahead, trying to catch the rest ahead. There wasn't as many as there ought to be. He followed the last of them, at the head of the pack, into the river, feeling his jacket stink to his skin through his shirt- burning his back, his neck...

As his people got the idea, they bent at the waist, dunking their heads, and scooping up handfuls frantically to douse their clothes. Soaked himself now, Bellamy inched sideways up the bank, till he was high enough out of the water to stand his ground. There he stood, on a firm scattering of deep set, rough rocks, to watch the procession.

Wading down. Ankle deep. Calf deep. The current rushed against their legs. Rocks sent heavy, soaked boots slipping. The bank was a sharp incline. They were hip deep, and staggering to move with the current before they knew what was happening. Chest deep for some of shorter kids. Yelps, and panicked cries abounded, as some went scrambling back up the banks. In the water, the few Ark issue jackets and cargo pants were just as heavy as the furs, and hide garments. Kids began to shed them, tossing their slippery weight pitifully towards the bank, where most were simply swept along down the river along with their owners.

Where was Zoe, Bellamy wondered. Cade, Sterling, Collette, Bree, Atom? Mary, for all the stars above, where was Mary? Clarke would never forgive him if anything happened to her. He'd never forgive himself.

The wide bend grew closer. They just had to get through it, and then, then, Bellamy hoped he was right. The smoke was still growing thicker, as they gasped through their makeshift masks, too hard to see much, but it looked like the river narrowed.

 _All the gods that may be, let it narrow. Let us cross. Keep us from drowning to escape burning._

Bellamy prayed.

 _Don't let me have killed them leading them into this water._

They struggled on.

Slipping on rocks.

Falling to their knees into the current.

Being swept away, and sucking in mouthfuls of water, full of soot from themselves.

Sinking into mud.

Choking on grey, stinging smoke.

Flinching at the burning ashes.

Holding onto each other by arms, and shoulders, and necks, trying to stay together. To stay upright.


	9. Rescue Me

AN: I know it's short, but I hope it's good

 **Rescue Me**

(by One Republic)

Heaving with the effort, Bellamy picked his way downstream, at the back of the procession of Skaikru. It didn't seem to be enough of them ahead, but in the hazy, pale glow of the fires growing closer, it was hard to tell. He'd thought he'd heard some kids climbing the banks, escaping the river along the way, but he couldn't see any movement up on either side anymore. Clarke should be here. Octavia should be here. He couldn't keep them all alive on his own.

His throat seizing up, Bellamy went down to his knees in the river. The frigid water washed clean the burning embers from his arms and hands. He bowed his head, panting, before struggling back up to his feet. All around him, he felt more than heard the sloshing as dozens of kids trudged through the purgatory. It was too cold to be wet, much less to stay in this frothing, icy river.

Choking on the smoke at the banks, or drowning in the deep, rushing center of the wide river?

Feeling something hard against his knees, Bellamy reach down, and realized it was _someone._ Bracing himself by digging his heels deeper into the muddy riverbed, he yanked up hard, and pulled them from the freezing depths. Trudged a few steps up the bank to stand just calf deep.

Limp in his grasp, Bellamy brushed the shaggy, soaking hair out of the kid's face.

 _Sterling._

Clammy and sopping, the boy coughed ineffectively, and Bellamy rushed further up the bank, onto dry ground, risking the sweltering heat of the forest going up nearby. He dropped the boy, and pushed him onto his side, slapping his back.

"Where the hell is Jones?" yelled Bellamy, but the few stragglers who'd heard, and slowly made their way up the bank behind them, looked blankly between them, and the rest of the clan moving downriver still.

With slight huffs, and his head flopped forwards onto the rocky, slick ground, Sterling coughed up a mouthful of water. His eyes didn't open, and his breathing didn't ease. Bellamy pounded on the smaller boy's back, getting out only little streams of river water.

"Hey, hey, man,"

With a burst of an idea, Bellamy awkwardly held the kid up, and stuck two fingers gingerly down into his throat.

The kid seized up as he gagged, and Bellamy pulled his hand back. Hastily turning the kid to the side, Bellamy sagged with relief when Sterling began to vomit.

"It's ok, you're ok, c'mon, man," urged Bellamy.

Water mixed with yellow bile and the remnants of their dinner, stinking, and foamy, splattered onto them both, and then, thank all the gods that be, the boy began to cough up sputtering mouthfuls of brown water.

Sterling gasped, and his blue eyes flew open, streaked red, his hands flailing out, snatching a hold of Bellamy's jacket.

"Really, kid, you're ok, you're gonna be ok,"

Sterling coughed wetly again, his teeth chattering.

"C'mon, what happened? Where's Jones?" asked Bellamy, but Sterling's bloodshot eyes wavered, and he opened his mouth but nothing came.

"Ok, it's gonna be ok, I got you," Bellamy's assurances were loud, and thick.

Blowing out of breathe, and watching it in the cold air, Bellamy tried to think of what to do. Couldn't come up with much. Stripped off the heavy jacket, and waterlogged utility belt from Sterling. Tossed them aside. At least he wouldn't be weighed down so much.

Hands half-numb, Bellamy stood up, and dragged Sterling up with an arm around his back. The kid's raised his head a bit when he found himself on his feet.

"Bellamy," coughed Sterling, reaching out and grabbing hold of Bellamy's jacket again.

"Yea, man, it's me. I'll get you out of this, you hear me?"

Nodding almost sent the boy to his knees, but Bellamy held him up. Adjusted his grip on the gunner, and dragged him along. Whether it'd been five minutes, or twenty, that they'd been up on the rocky bank, Bellamy couldn't tell. But as he'd stood up, he'd clocked just how much closer the flames had raced.

Worst of all, he could see fire ahead, on both sides.

Leaving the river anytime soon wasn't going to be an option.

"They're all going to die on my watch," he realized.

They grew wearier with each slog of a step. He realized he could hear the splashing, groaning sound of others entering the river behind him. He looked behind, and could only make out a mass of shapes. Many shadows of them, moving quickly downriver. The smoke obscured the orange, dim light of the flames too thickly. Those who'd crawled out of the water back upriver? Or were these even Skaikru?

Bellamy supposed it didn't matter for now, who was who. Anybody in this river needed an escape.

Hours heaved by, every moment bruising and beating them further. They rested on hands and knees in the shallows upon the banks. Crawled along the rocks, and tried their luck at leaving the river altogether. Each time, they were driven by, sooner or later, by the horror that nipped at their heels.

Monroe knew... no, she hoped, that her friends were all behind her, slogging their way downstream. At least she hoped they all were. The glow of the flames creeping closer from either side only permeated so much through the thick white veil. Splashes, and cries- fear? Exhaustion? Pain? She couldn't tell anymore, told her at least some still followed, and so she kept going. Her feet, both of them, weighed more than a doe, and Monroe didn't know much how longer she could keep lifting them. Coated in her last pair of Ark-issue cargos, her calves burned, and her thighs ached, somehow, beneath the deepening numbness. How much longer could she keep going...

Not daring to let her feet still, Monroe tried to look behind as she kept moving forwards. A slippery rock, and she scrambled to regain her footing, gasping for air, praying for it to clear.

She looked over her shoulder again, moving slower as she did this time.

There!

There was definitely movement, people, trailing her, starting not five feet back, and stretching at least till she couldn't make anything out.

Skaikru was still following her.

So she kept going.

Yet again, she risked a look over her shoulder.

Was that sunrise creeping up behind them? She tried to remember the dropship's solar powered clock. Sunrise beginning meant it must be about 7am. There was no way they'd been walking since midnight.

Someone bumped into her shoulder, and she steadied them automatically. She looked back again. There was definitely a pink tinge to the sky behind them, a faint splash of relief against the blues and oranges that had been their night.

"Zoe?" croaked a hoarse voice.

"Yea, who're you? Can't see," Monroe forced out her scorched throat.

"Cade," the kid coughed, and fumbled against her, before finding her hand and holding on desperately.

"The sun's coming up," grunted Monroe, "We'll find a way out soon,"

Cade mumbled something that sounded like it was maybe agreement, but Monroe couldn't really make it out.

There was no way they could keep going much longer.


	10. Oats in the Water

**Oats in the Water**

(Ben Howard)

 _85 days till the end_

They'd gone south from Polis following Caliban kom Trikru's lead. He'd hardly spoke except to declare that they would attempt to cut Skaikru off down river. No one else felt much like speaking either. The torches that Gaia and Yulian carried did little to illuminate the well-trod trails. Together they pressed at a hard pace. Focus sharpened their senses. The cold, the quiet, the fear...

In neither this life or before, had Clarke ever been much south of either Polis or Mt. Weather. Southern Trikru lands were more densely populated, as it was farther both Azgeda, and the Mountain. Here they neighbored far friendlier clans. The black war paint smudged across Caliban and Yulian's faces was meant to let them pass easily, but Clarke didn't know if that was even neccesary. Their party was ignored. The thick forests, interspersed with ruins of the old world, were home to numerous villages, which apparently grew fewer in number, but larger in population the farther south you went. None they passed raised alarms at the travelers passing by. Not even the ones they went close enough for the Skaikru to curiously assess by the lights of the night watches.

The ground was dry, and the trees varied still from bare to dark, startlingly evergreen. It looked like home, now that Polis was out of sight. The Trikru half of their riding party settled onto their horses with confident ease as they made their way south- away from Azgeda. It was clear from how comfortably Gaia and Yulian followed that this path was well-known to them. As for Miller, Clarke, and Charlotte, though, the only path they knew by heart was the straight shot between Hundred Camp and Polis. Even if not for the dark of night, they'd have been traveling blind away from that path.

Leaving a thick copse of evergreen, the group came into a sparse stretch, and Gaia pointed out a grouping of thatched huts, barely lit by a communal fire, some distance ahead. Clarke was trying to make out some idea of the village size in the faint beginnings of dawn when Yulian gave a shout. Caliban grunted at the boy to be quiet, but all eyes followed where the second pointed. That was not dawn offering a lightening of the darkness, but the far off, pale orange glow of fire. Closer than it'd ought to be. They stared, holding their horses still, each trying to take it in.

"North of our journey," murmured Gaia.

"We stay on course," Caliban said.

He turned his back on the disaster, and urged them on.

South they rode.

The sun rose to eclipse the far off flames.

Higher still.

They pressed on, breaks both few and brief. Once the winter sun had grown hot and heavy enough to redden the cheeks of the fair skinned Skaikru girls, Gaia pulled a dark hooded cloak from her saddle packs, and hesitated only a heartbeat before withdrawing two more. Identical to the first, they were the uniform of the Order of the Flame. Gaia pulled the first on over her plain riding attire. With the hood settled upon her braids, a shadow was cast over her face.

Shyly, she offered the others to the Skaikru nitblidas. Charlotte accepted it eagerly, and pulled it on before murmuring, "Mochof, seda,". She flashed a tired half-smile, returned by Gaia's.

Clarke watched Charlotte tie the cloak neatly beneath her chin, over and under her chest. The deep hood carefully tugged up, Charlotte looked expectedly towards Clarke. Thanking Gaia, Clarke accepted the last cloak. Sturdier and more closely fitted than the loose, velvet cloaks that Lexa wore, and gifted to Clarke, it was still familiar enough. With her head covered, and the little mare steady beneath her, she breathed slowly. Tried to rein in her fears.

There was still so much ground to cover.

They kept going.

South, then west, trying to anticipate where the fleeing Skaikru would end up.

Her head jerked, as the horse beneath her ambled to a stop unbidden. Clarke forced her eyes open, blinking, once, twice, again... Her head pounded. Around her, the sky had shifted. The sun was setting, and they would've hit Hundred Camp hours ago.

Miller's voice found her somehow.

"Clarke, we've gotta stop,"

She looked limply down at him, from atop her weary little mare, to find that he'd taken hold of the reins. He did not pull them from her grasp, but had simply held enough pressure to stop the agreeable horse. Her tail swatted at yet another insect, the very ends brushing against Clarke's thigh, but she barely felt it.

"We've got to be getting close," Clarke said, her voice as frail as the set of her trembling mouth.

Without another word, Miller let go of her reins. The mare's head lowered to brush the tall grass. He reached up, and took hold of Clarke, tugging her down till she fell into his arms. A muffled harrumph of protest belied the way she let her head lean onto his broad shoulder. Nathan was getting bigger, she thought dazedly. Broader and thicker. The food in Polis, and the training, seemed to be suiting him well. Clarke looked at the side of his face she could see without raising her heavy head. Scruffy beard along his broad jaw, he was looking more like a grown man than a teenage boy. A man she knew she could trust. One she was lucky to have on her side. Her eyes closed without her meaning to.

Thick, narrow bedrolls had been tied to each horse, and most of the riding party threw theirs upon the ground, in a bit of an awkward circle. Caliban silently pulled Miller and Clarke's both down, and laid them out side-by-side, so close they nearly overlapped. With a glance at the grounder, Miller nodded slightly, and laid down upon the far side, lowering Clarke carefully down on the inside. She buried her face in his shoulder as they lay facing each other, with a comfort only possible to those who've spent a good deal of time wrapped up together. Eventually she roused enough to lean back away, and look up at the sky which shone in the distance with a fire worse than she'd ever have been able to imagine if not for the end of the world. Her hands, clutching Miller's shirt, shook. This was too much like Praimfaya. Far too easy to remember running from the Death Wave when she thought of her people fleeing for their lives.

As Gaia and Charlotte quickly tended to the six horses, Clarke drifted. Wary as ever, Miller watched the settling in despite his poor vantage spot laying down. After loosening girths and tying each to their own tree, Charlotte, quiet as a mouse, laid her bedroll close enough to touch beside Clarke's. The young girl didn't even bother to remove the cloak, or loosen her boots. Only paused long enough to lay down her sword, just beyond the top of the row of bedrolls, and curled up at Clarke's back. Once Charlotte was settled, Gaia neatly arranged herself on her other side, with a few inches of space between their bedrolls, but still close enough to share warmth once the sun fully set. They rested. Towards their heads, Yulian stood, several feet away, standing at a parade rest, fidgeting, but quiet. Opposite him, at the other end of their narrow campsite, stood Caliban, still and stiff as a statue. It wasn't even dark yet, but slowed, even breathing announced soon enough that all four were soon sleeping.

The stars above their heads paled in comparison to the roaring oranges and reds north of them. This far away, it was beautiful. Clarke watched how the fire seemed to shimmer as she woke. Sucking in a deep breathe, she exhaled steadily. The smoke hadn't reached them yet. Miller squeezed her shoulder again, as he'd woken her.

"I'm up, I'm up," she grumbled. Miller snorted at the flailing hand she extended towards him, but caught hold of it, and hauled her up anyway.

"C'mon princess, I don't know how long we slept, but it's been a few hours at least,"

No one had bothered, or perhaps dared, to build a campfire. It was cold, but there was light enough from the moon, and stars, and the infernal orange glow in the distance that they didn't really need it. Clarke stretched. Her tight muscles ached. After watching her a moment, Miller nodded slightly, heading to switch off with Yulian. With one last, twisting curve of her back, and a yawn, Clarke went towards Caliban. The forest was so quiet despite all the anxieties welling up.

Caliban greeted her silently. Dark and shadowed, Clarke wondered about the look on his face when he glanced at her. She tried to smile, but it was stiff on her face. Cleared her throat. Moved closer. Stopped right beside him, her cloak brushing his furs.

"I'll take over watch. How long has it been since sunset?" asked Clarke.

Grunting, Caliban stared off into the distance. She waited.

"Half the night, maybe less," he replied shortly.

Silence fell between, and he didn't turn to head towards the sleeping area. Clarke held her tongue. He was good company, even if quiet.

"Ton DC is burning," he announced into the still, quiet air.

Her hand flew to his arm, and hung on, her eyes on his face, and she moved to stand before him. He looked down at her, eyes dark, and his beard making it hard to read his expression even this close. But something in the set of his jaw betrayed him. Fury. Fear. Desperation.

"I'm sorry," she gasped. Squeezed his arm comfortingly. One large, rough hand gripped her other arm in turn, holding her there in front of him.

"This is not your doing, Wanheda," he rumbled, looking back up into the sky to watch the distant fire.

"But I didn't... I didn't even think about the fire spreading out to the village,"

Caliban ignored her rambling. Releasing her arm, he patted her shoulder with surprising gentleness.

"We can split up. Cover more ground. Maybe your people are trying to save the village-"

"My people know to follow the river, and would not wage an unwinnable war with their children and elders, and yours are obeying Heda's order if they are smart,"

"And if they aren't?"

He turned to give her a sardonic look, but saw her wide eyes, and clenched teeth.

"We stay together until we find survivors," he declared.

 _84 days until the end_

When they come to a bridge at mid-morning, the horses balk.

Sharp heels in their soft sides, leather reins against their necks, slaps to their rumps... did no good. Caliban stilled the lot by dismounting, and leading his soft brown stallion forwards by hand. Gaia sprang down from her own saddle atop her thick, gray mount, landing light on her feet.

It's small, and old. Clarke knew just enough of pre-Catalyst architecture to confidently say the bridge hadn't been new when ALIE had tried to wipe away humanity. Whether it was 19th century, or what, though, she couldn't tell. Either way, it was older than she liked betting her life on. Surviving three centuries of neglect, and nuclear war, didn't mean it'd hold much longer. Not that there was a choice. If they were going to meet up with her people, this was their best bet according to Gaia.

Stone, slate, and Aegean blues, foaming as it hurtles downstream.

The untouched land is moss, juniper, basil, sages, olives, and of course, pin greens...

Cedar, umber, carob, and walnut browns for the trees and dirt.

The smoke is dove, graphite, and porpoise greys teeming among them.

The fire is all scarlet, oranges, and those shadows...

Silently, Clarke cataloged all the colors she'd never truly seen in space, only memorized from tablets, and the precious few tattered books. The fire is burning away the beauty, the colors, the life...

There is something wrong with her, Clarke thinks, that she knows now... if she lives long enough to, she will draw it. Again, and again, for the rest of her life. She will never be satisfied that she has captured the striking horror of this disaster. There was nothing that could have prepared her for this sight, the sounds, the smells... Paper could never contain it, but she will try.

As their horses grudgingly followed their heads, the rest of the group joined in. Miller's horse trails behind, and even Charlotte's. Clarke tried tugging her little mare behind the rest, but the horse stubbornly held her nose high in the air, feet planted firm in the dry grass. With a groan, Clarke jerked at the reins forwards, but the now the riding party was now heading onto the bridge without her.

As Clarke tugged again, the mare's velvety nose went higher still as the horse shifted her weight.

Behind Clarke, a snicker made her spin on her heel, already glaring.

There she found the mockery had come from Caliban's ill-behaved second, but Yulian kom Trikru just grinned at her dark expression.

"Down, then forward," he announced blithely, his dark eyes bright with amusement that she hadn't seen from him considering this awful journey.

"What?" Clarke was tired. Bone deep, had forgotten when she'd lost slept, kind of tired, and the Trikru boy's three words didn't make sense. "What?"

He snorted again, and stepped closer to Clarke, and her mare, whose nose had lowered some while she was being neglected. That nose went directly back up, so high she'd have drowned if it rained, once Yulian snatched the reins from Clarke's loose grip.

"Down, steady, once," he explained, not anymore cleared, but then with the leather lead in both his calloused hands, he bore his weight onto her head, pulling to the ground. She snorted, and huffed, and her feet shifted restlessly, but Yulian held her nose firm, at low enough to brush his thighs.

"Now, forwards," he told Clarke shortly, and keeping one hand on the reins, heaved the horse's head forwards, and she shuffled her feet to follow.

"Down, then forwards," he repeated, looking at the bridge ahead, where everyone had now nearly cleared, and strode ahead, the mare having no choice but to follow. Clarke trotted to keep up, and just noticed that Yulian's own oddly mustard-brown horse being led off the bridge opposite Gaia's gray, when Yulian got her attention back by shoving the split reins into her hands.

"Don't stop," he warned, before he sprinted off to catch up to Gaia and their horses.

The dozens of hooves echoed in dull thuds over the ancient bridge.

Clarke looked down into the high, rushing brown water as she finally brought up the end of the procession across.

On the other side, as they left the bridge behind, Clarke noticed an old plaque, and ran her fingers curiously over. "Hibbs Bridge" she could make out, deeply engraved into the metal, but the rest had been obscured by time.

With a sign, she tossed her hair over her shoulder, and tucked the prickly star necklace beneath her shirts again. Somewhere out there, her people wandered, driven from their home by a growing inferno. Meanwhile she could not even get one stubborn, small horse to walk over a bridge without a grounder's help. Useless didn't quite suffice. What could she even do for her people in this disaster?


	11. Guiding Light

AN: Thanks for all the comments and support! 3

Chapter 11

 **Guiding Light**

(Mumford and Sons)

* 84 days till the end *

"Wetlands," Gaia called it.

The name certainly fit. Even as they avoided the actual shallow ponds, and massive, murky puddles their boots squished into ground with a squelching whine. Moss hung thickly from the otherwise bare trees, and Clarke would have called it a swamp, if she'd been asked. The horses shied, and pranced, flinching and quivering as their hooves sank into the thick mud floor, then had to be yanked up forcefully from the thick mud. Again, they were forced to dismount, as the horses would go no farther carrying them. Throwing her leg over, Clarke began to slid down, and halfway there, felt a yank around her neck. Groaning, she untangled the tiny star pendant of her necklace from her horse's mane to free herself. With a sigh, she stepped backwards, and went sliding.

Something slippery beneath her feet gave way, and Clarke found herself sitting down into the muck hard. The little mare sidestepped nervously away. Now even her underwear was wet. Mucky, and wet, even.

"Blughhhh," she groaned out, making no effort to get up.

Her horse looked over at her, and Clarke just stared back. Exhausted, and rather humbled by the indignity. Rolling his eyes, Miller came over, ignoring the restlessly shifting mare, and scooped Clarke up from the mud.

Which had been nice, Clarke figured, until he threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

It just made her dripping leggings ride up. With a whine, she claw at his arm and shoulder till he let her wiggle down to her feet. When she squirmed uncomfortably, but was at least steady, she looked up into his dark eyes. Whether the glint in them was pity, or amusement, she couldn't tell. Sighing, she turned away. Her clothes made a wet, sliding squeak. Behind her still, Miller snorted softly. Traveling on earth was an undignified, weary experience at best. This was just a rash waiting to happen. Putting aside her own flith, Clarke shook her head, and tied back her now muddy braids into one large clump. Wiping off, and patting down her clothes would have to do.

How long they wandered, they measured by the sun. In the thick, soggy ground, they walked on foot, leading their horses on. At least no one else looked any happier about this environment, even Caliban was scowling disapprovingly about him. His second, Yulian kom Trikru, was positively stomping about- flinging bits of mud all around. Gaia was creeping along with a cautious grace, bothering disturbing the squishy ground, and Charlotte was obviously attempting to imitate her, but her face showed none of the serene tolerance that Gaia's did. Instead, her tongue was caught between her teeth, and her brow furrowed in disgust. Clarke understood.

Caliban halted, bringing their sloppy line to a stop, Clarke's head jerked up, trying to look around her horse at him. The mare's eyes were covered by a thick strip of blanket tied tightly, and she leaned against her handler fearfully. When she couldn't meet his eyes for the horse in between them, she followed his gaze. Somewhat north of where they stood. It was the same as everywhere west and north- graying smoke rising above the trees. In the sunlight, it was hard to tell the orange-yellowish light from this far off, but they were getting closer. Now that they all were mostly still, she could hear it. A sound of something sloshing. Coming closer. Too loud, too heavy to be any of the small species of animals they'd seen since entering the wetlands.

A pair of bedraggled warriors appeared, mud up to their thighs, and gloomy, but Miller recognized them quickly as part of the commander's forces. They had lost their horses in the marsh, and the rest of their riding party hours before that. Winds had changed on the other side of the river, and fire had abruptly separated them. They explained, wearily, that they had left Polis with a dozen of heda's soldiers, doubled up saddlebags of supplies, and a pair of healers, before sunrise, having hoped to catch up to Wanheda's riding party.

"Well, you have," offered Charlotte awkwardly.

The pair was so downtrodden that Clarke felt bad about asking if they had any idea where the rest of their crew might have ended up.

It took hours longer than it ought to, Clarke knew, though no one said. Their route circled around from the mountain, ending up on the far side of the land they'd known, at least four hours further from Polis in a straight path, and double that on the circuitous, hesitant method they'd been forced to use.

The sounds of horns drew them in- to a sodden camp, bordered on two sides by water, one the great river they'd already crossed, and the other a little brown stream. The ground here was mushy with wet leaves, and slick with mud. The trees were small, and few. In spring, it was probably a pretty little clearing. Right now, though, desolate and barren in the January chill, it would have been a pitiful spot to camp- if it's very damp, blighted space hadn't offered them sanctuary. Fire wasn't going to follow them here. Gaia murmured to Clarke and Charlotte that the land here lay low, flooding high in heavy rains, and dank, and moist even in the driest summers.

"We could never build here," agreed Caliban.

"But perhaps it's given to us to be our haven," whispered Gaia, her face looking up, towards the burning sky.

"Our people have dealt with fires many times before. Only in summer, and the beginnings of fall, when the land is dry. I do not know how it could have gotten so bad they abandoned the village so soon," offered Caliban, as he saw the Skaikru eyeing the work.

Clarke walked between Caliban and Nathan, Charlotte rushing behind them.

So many were hustling about the murky open ground behind the trench lines that, Clarke suspected people from other villages had come to help already. The hasty shelters in creation were tents of large animal bones and skins. They found more than a dozen women and children digging trenches, and crossed the lines towards the dozens of people behind. Even smaller children were carrying jugs of water, slowly, and tiredly, from the river and stream, pouring into the trenches once those digging had moved on. Every ten feet or so, a large torch was held carefully to provide light for the work.

"Make way for Wanheda, and the envoy of our heda!"

Clarke walked between Caliban, and Nathan, Charlotte rushing behind them, into the refugee camp. Croaking and sniveling, the lot of them, mucky from wading in the bleak river, Trikru and Skaikru alike. The same water that stood as their barricade against the conflagration dribbled from their hair and clothes, chilling them deep into their bones with twinges and woe. Trembling with the remembrance of the broiling they'd undergone. The children of Ton DC mewling, those apart from their families kneeing, the desolation stews greater with every lonely hour. The rising sun alit the ground they wallowed upon, covered in viscous moss, hardly better than the glacial river itself, with nothing dry, and nothing warm to soothe their grousing.

With a deep nod at Clarke waving him off, Caliban had strode straight off in search of Anya. Gaia had trailed behind him, as had Yulian. Charlotte had spotted Tris, and run off after a pleading look at Clarke had meet with a brief, strained smile. Only Miller stayed at her side, silent, but his eyes frankly scanning the site.

"Clarke!" came a shout from somewhere in the midst of the teeming camp.

The crowd parted, and stilled.

And there was Bellamy, finally. Clarke hurtled across the distance towards him. Faltering at the last moment, she rocked back onto her heels to keep from the impact. The purple shadows beneath his eyes were so deep, so wide, she wasn't sure whether they were from lack of sleep, or hits. More than a day's worth of scruff lined his grimy cheeks, and his hair was slicked back messily, glinting with slime.

"There are," Bellamy paused, trying to get the coughing, and pressed on, devastated, "52 missing, and Sterling is dead,"

Clarke's face crumbled.

Bellamy still had her wrapped tight in his arms, but she could tell he was looking around her. Behind her. When he stiffened, she pulled back almost in time. The arms that had been encasing her pushed her away. Brushing against Miller's shoulder, she regained her balance. Miller didn't flinch. He also didn't look at her. Both of them kept their eyes on Bellamy, waiting.

"Where's Octavia?" he demanded.

Miller remained stiff, but Clarke folded her arms in front of her. The wet clothes stuck uncomfortably to her skin.

"Bellamy," she implored, then bit her lip.

"Where is my sister?"

"You want Octavia safe. Polis thinks this is arson, it's hardly the safest place to be," deflected Clarke quietly.

He sneered at her, angry, suspicious, and worse... Bellamy crowded her, opposite Miller. Leaned down.

"If that was the real reason, your kid wouldn't be here either,"

His shoulder bumped hers hard as he stalked off, and Clarke let her slump. Heavy footsteps of his sodden boots moved away. She didn't look back.

Closing her eyes, Clarke swallowed all the rebuttals she wanted to make.

"Stand up straight," grunted Miller.

Her eyes opened, and she shifted to face him more, finding he'd done the same. The words hadn't processed through her brain.

He frowned as he looked over his shoulder towards where Bellamy was still stomping away. Hundred Camp's leader was blatantly putting as much distance between himself and the princess as possible. Making a scene had never bothered Blake.

Miller looked back to where Clarke stood, now directly in front of him, and close enough for them to whisper. Waiting with wary eyes. The political princess of the Ark understood discretion at least.

"Back on the Ark, you had a real thing for taking everybody's shit-" he held up a hand to stop her words when her mouth flew open. Shifted a bit to square up his shoulders. Clarke screwed up her face, wanting to interrupt, but his glare paused her.

"Yea. It made sense there. You put up with some name calling, and hair pulling, and idiot kids with anger issues didn't go to the Skybox for harassing a councilor's daughter. But this isn't the Ark, and Blake's not some dumb kid. Your martyr bullshit needs to die. You wanna be in charge? Stand up straight. Stop taking bullshit because people can't handle their anger issues,"

"Bellamy blames me for his relationship with Octavia, and I can't fix any of it,"

He nodded, curt, and unconcerned, his face blank.

"Not your job. Your job is to keep them from ruining things for the rest of us,"

His demand rubbed her the wrong way, and she fidgeted, her lower lip pouting as she fought her initial urge to argue about this too. Miller leaned closer, and bit out his words grimly.

"You can't fix everything, and you can't control how people feel. We all got our personal crap to handle," he added, hard, but low, his dark eyes boring into hers.

Exhaling her pent up breathe, Clarke closed her eyes again. Squared up her shoulders like her adviser, and clenched her jaw. When she opened them again, she met Miller's for another long moment as she breathed deeper, slower. Let herself drawn strength from him.

"Right. First things first. We need to know who made it here, but before that..."

His smirk in answer was a quick thing, and he waited for her to stalk on before he fell into step at her side.

First, she goes to Sterling. Nyko wrapped Sterling in soggy furs. There was no place to bury him here. Not near enough dry wood to build a pyre in the marsh, if they'd even dared tempt mother nature in such a way. Nothing to do, but wait.

Kneels down, knowing without having to look that Miller is standing just behind her. The young gunner lays under still-damp blankets near the riverbank. With numb hands, Clarke drew them away to see him. She hears a choked sob not even realizing it came from herself. She had forgotten. Last time, he had died when she wasn't around. Before she'd ever made it to Arkadia. The last time she'd seen had been during the grounder attack, and she hadn't known he'd survived it until after he'd already died. Fell off a cliff trying to save a friend. His body hadn't been recovered. Never been buried.

Monroe came and knelt down at Clarke's side, staring down at Sterling too.

"He passed out from the smoke, right when it all started. Jones was supposed to help him. I mean, Jones' is twice his size. I could barely drag him even with Cade's help. Kid's not exactly huge, much less me,"

"What happened with Jones?" whispered Clarke.

Monroe shrugged. Clarke couldn't see it with her gaze on Sterling, but she felt it against her own shoulder.

"Dunno. Jones isn't here, but barely half of us are..."

"I'm sorry,"

"Are we even gonna make it to Praimfaya," whispered Monroe.

Clarke shuddered.

"Who didn't... who hasn't made it here yet?" asked Clarke.

Monroe sniffed hard.

"Mischa, Troy, Bree, Atom, Collette, Jasper..."

The names kept coming, though eventually Monroe faltered, and Miller and Clarke tried to remember all the names, all the kids, they'd come down with.

Night had fallen fully, but the temporary base camp was lit only by the painstakingly tended torches held by only a few. Beyond those, only the threatening glare emitting across the waterways offered any guiding light.

Though nearly two dozen more Trikru had trickled into the wetlands, in pairs and trios, and one group of half a dozen older kids, drenched in blackened scraps, there had been no arrivals of Skaikru since Clarke's party had shown up. Most of those who'd made it at least seemed stable. They all were at risk for smoke inhalation complications, but otherwise, seemed alright. A few had superficial burns where their skin had been exposed, and Mary Eng had cut her calf on something in the river. It wasn't awful, but it was deep at one end.

Anya, stripped down to a thin band around her breasts, and shorts tied with a drawstring that passed for both underwear and bedclothes, barefoot, stalked through the camp. A restless panther, trapped. Her hair was still wet, and hung limply, with only a braid to either side to keep it from her face. At her side, scurried a revolving shift of young seconds, bearing a torch.

Most of the Trikru were similarly bared to the elements. The shed garments were spread out across rocks, hanging from taller bushes, and a few puny clotheslines erected from the sparse, crooked trees. The overflow lay in heaps upon the riverbank. Clarke had followed their example hours ago, first freezing as the air hit her skin, but then relaxing into the relief of having the damp clothes on her.

One of the younger Skaikru boys lay beside her, and she sat quietly, petting his hair. A nightmare, that he hadn't had to explain, had woken him, and Clarke had gotten to him first. Now she waited for him to find sleep again.

A call went up from the watch to the south, their side of the river, and Anya went still. Only a dozen paces from where Clarke sat beside Cade, the Ton DC chief tensed up, like a hunting dog pointing.

Another call came, and a half dozen whistles, before they began to hear the shouting.

Making no effort at silence, the squelching noise of numerous feet hustling through the muck grew.

Miraculously dry from their knees up, a thick group appeared.

Anya shot forwards to meet them. A boy who couldn't be more than eight carrying a torch scurried behind her.

As Clarke jumped to her feet, sliding a little on the slippery ground, Cade, sleep forgotten, scrambled to his feet. The kid bumped into her feet, and nearly sending them both down. After retying her sword's sheath to her hip, Clarke let her hand drift down to the gun strapped high on her thigh.

The new arrivals trod closer.

As Anya, and several others converged, Caliban emerged from the darkness.

They met the newcomers, but Clarke couldn't hear the greetings. As more of the Ton DC refugees gathered behind Anya, Clarke realized this was not another group of Trikru. She moved closer, and the crowd behind Anya parted enough for her to see when the man leading the arrivals shoved back his cloak.


	12. When The Night is Over

AN: Thanks for the comments!

Jo Hamel- Thank you for sticking around!

When the Night is Over

\- Lord Huron

 **Chapter 12**

 _Polis, Barracks Behind Commander's Tower_

The windowless room, seventh from the front entrance, was his for now. There she was waiting when Lincoln stalked in. Dim candlelight illuminated his dark face. Displeasure simmered upon it. He panted harshly.

"What's wrong?" asked Octavia, rolling onto her side to stare at him.

Lincoln looked anywhere but her.

"What's wrong?" she repeated, growing louder, and sitting up stiffly, holding the blanket in tight fists.

Not easy in a room so tiny that in mornings, he could barely stretch for the day in it. The sky girl in his bed looked so helpless, though he knew she truly wasn't. Short beside him, face scrubbed nearly clean, stripped down to just thin, black underthings, and hair loosened for sleep around her shoulders. Young, and so new to the ground. He knew she was stronger than she looked, but he still couldn't do this.

Another hard breathe expelled as he tried to decide. Splita to his people, he might be, for defying a direct order. His only hope was that it had not come from heda, nor Indra. Quint _would_ have said if it did. If it only came from Anya...

"My people-" he broke off. _Splita._

"Trikru would seal the alliance between they and Skaikru. Tied together by marriage. With Wanheda being courted by every other clan, Trikru would join with you. My people want me to court you, to convince you, to marry you. With all haste. Before Wanheda weds, and more eyes turn upon you as the next eldest nitblida of the Sky people. It will. Once the princess has chosen. "

In his admittance, shame mixed heavily with anger. Despite this, Lincoln forced himself to look her in the eyes anyway. Looking at her darkening face, he couldn't know what she was thinking. A skyborn, a nitblida, an ambassador, a girl whom was shaping into a warrior faster than anyone ever ought to be able, a girl whose smiles were rare, but could be brighter than the stars she fell from...

Being drawn to her was inevitable. Understanding her, impossible.

"Indra?" Lexa?" demanded Octavia sharply, her shoulders tightening, and her arms locking around her bent knees.

Lincoln shook his head roughly, wildly.

"Trikru's war chiefs, beneath Indra-" he cut himself off. _Splita._

"I would not coerce you," he croaked.

She sat there, still, silent, tightly holding herself, watching him, face unreadable.

"Marriage is rare," he continued when she offered no reply, "the only people who enter into such commitments are people of your status, not mine-"

"My status?" asked Octavia lowly. She stood up, in one long unfolding. Bare except a singlet and plain black panties, still looking fierce now, with her shoulders squared and fists clenched. Her voice rising as she went on...

"My status, me? I was a second child. Illegal. _Selfish._ My mother had to hide me under the floor to protect me, and when I was found... they killed her. Humiliated my brother. Punished him for hiding me. For protecting our mother. My people locked me up as a criminal among rapists and murderers. My status?"

When she finished, she scoffed, and looked away from his softened eyes. As hers had rose, his temper had fell, in balance.

"My people only see that you are strong. What was done to you in the Sky only makes you stronger on the ground. Your blood runs black, you take to the ways of the ground as if you were born for it, and you bear the mantle of the first ambassador from the sky. You are known as Wanheda's most trusted," he countered slowly.

"What about you?" she snapped, looking back and nearly snarling at the soft look on his face.

He eyed her carefully, and began taking off his outer things. Laid down the sword he'd left on till now.

"I see the woman I would never wish to hurt. Much less betray. Not push into wedding before you've even spent a year in this land. A woman I would not bind to me just to keep her from being wooed by other clans,"

"And what about what I want?" she demanded, her face flickering, as she edged backwards, and to the side, avoiding him as he moved towards the bed slowly.

"What do you want? Sacrificing your position as ambassador would be required if you married outside of Skaikru," warned Lincoln.

Sitting down upon the floor bed, Lincoln now looked up to her. In the dark room, her eyes were fathomless, but her sharp features told him of her anger.

"So, what, Clarke can marry anyone she wants, and stay leader, but unless I marry Skaikru, which has like sixty guys total my age, I can't be ambassador?" she grumbled bitterly.

He nodded solemnly.

"It doesn't matter." she shook it off. "I'll still be an adviser."

"Only if your leader, and the new ambassador agree," corrected Lincoln.

"Clarke wouldn't get rid of me," blurted out Octavia immediately.

She paused. Once the words were out of her mouth, Lincoln's head titled thoughtfully, not disagreeing. Merely curious about how sure she was of it. Shadows gathered in her eyes, and her face darkened as she flushed hotly.

"We have the same goals. She needs me, and she knows it," she corrected, low, and cold. She crossed the tiny room in two steps to stand over him.

Her shoulders hunched, and he pulled her down to him comfortingly. Octavia wrapped herself around him. Inhaled the scent of him- musky, he'd been in Polis too long to smell of trees, but there was still something sharp- the harsh, lye soap the warriors cleaned with in the shared washrooms, she knew. That smell she'd known even before.

"You have a long history with the princess," observed the Trikru warrior as he held her close.

She nodded against him.

"Not all of it good," he continued, his voice ending questioningly.

"She's not _really_ a princess," grumbled Octavia.

He nodded gravely, as if he hadn't heard that same line dozens of times.

"But you trust her?"

Octavia grunted.

Her arms tightened around him, almost painfully, constricting him as if he might slip from her arms.

"She'll do _anything_ for people she cares about. I mean, shit. I would to, I guess... but Clarke... everyone's always looking to her, and she's always coming up plans... then more, when the others fall through... and she just... I would have cut my way through the mountain, and taken my friends out of there no matter what. I would have killed as many of the mountain men as I had to. No doubt. I wouldn't have minded,"

Frustrated, Octavia pulled out of Lincoln's arms restlessly. Rising to her feet, she paced the tiny rectangle room, feeling caged. Her chest ached. It hardly took four steps to cross it length-wise, and she turned sharply on a heel to do it again. Her breathe quickened. Still laying still on the pallet, Lincoln watched her.

This room was even smaller than their quarters on the Ark, but at least it was larger than her space in the floor. With a sharp pant, she kept from screaming barely. Throat tight, she choked on her words. Then tried again.

"But Clarke... she's not a warrior. She doesn't trust her weapon and her body to make her way. No, that's not _enough_ for her. She's always got to have some big grand plot," ranted the dark haired girl, low, and bitter, unwilling to let any of the commander's guards in the rooms surrounding them hear her words.

Growling out in frustration, she turned to stare at him pleadingly, and he simply held an arm up, offering the space beside him. With a cry, somewhere between anger and sorrow, Octavia threw herself down onto the pallet. _Home._ He was her home. Lincoln pressed a firm, steady kiss onto her aching lips and shifted beside her to relax. It was still nearly an hour before she could sink into sleep. Not even Lincoln's arms could erase all that happened in her memory.

Sometimes his eyes were so _familiar_ that Octavia could almost convince herself that he remembered their life together. He wasn't _her_ Lincoln in the same way though. This man had never even considered the weight of his loyalties. In this life, he could at her side with pride, because here she was not vermin to be scorned, not in Polis, not when even the commander who'd nearly killed her so many times in the last life showed her courtesy. Octavia knew the depth of his heart, but he did not.

And he didn't have any idea why she was so _angry._

 _Her_ Lincoln had. He hadn't liked lit, had tried to show her how to let it go, but when it hadn't worked, he'd still loved her.

This one doesn't even know how angry she really is.

It didn't feel like she'd been sleeping long when a pounding rumble upon the wood doors, and yelling came from the entrance of the barracks, and Lincoln was rising to his feet before he even opened his eyes. As Octavia woke, she realized she was hearing bells. Huge bells, from the sounds of it. Like the bells on the bottom, open air floor of the commander's tower.

"Call to action, it means everyone, now," he told Octavia, and she jumped up, pulling her clothes back on. "Something's wrong," muttered Octavia, and Lincoln looked at her, hard. He nodded curtly.

 _Wetlands downriver from Mount Weather_

There was something about the features that hinted that she should know the face, but the shadows upon them all, and the people between them blocked too much. Clarke's hopes rose... could it be?

Terse, low exchanges continued, but Clarke shouldered her way though the front line of Trikru to step into the dividing empty space. Her eyes shot to the man's face. When Yulian kom Trikru stepped closer, raising his torch high, the flames gleamed upon blond hair that was far too light. Crushing disappointment hit, and Clarke bit her lip to hold it in.

The leader of the arrivals met her with a smirk, and Clarke could see the exhaustion upon his face, and the few faces she could see of the huddle behind him.

"Wanheda, I am glad to see you arrived in good health,"

"Ulrin kom Delfikru," greeted Clarke grimly, her shoulders tight despite the smile she gave him.

Anya's eyes left Ulrin to turn towards the sky princess with a glare, but Ulrin ignored the less than welcoming air.

"I have brought something with me for a day's travel, to present to Wanheda, and Trikru, in absence of Heda," announced Ulrin, and at his words, the huddle behind him broke.

Anya's warriors raised their weapons, spears, and swords, and whatever they'd had in hand, but froze with them at ready.

Two men, both of the glowing forest clan if the lines of perfect dots marking their faces were to go by, hauled a third between them. Wrists bound tight behind his back, and ankles tied without an inch of give, gagged, but his face uncovered, the captive struggled and snarled. A third guard, a woman with the narrow, angled lines of Broadleaf, hovered behind, a spear in hand, which she jabbed into the captive's side once he was dumped at Clarke's feet. Yulian crowded closer with his torch to offer light. Anya pounced. Her bare foot pinning the prisoner to the swamp floor by his exposed throat. Clarke bent over as he choked, gasping for breath, and trying to shake off Anya. She took the damp cloth, someone's shirt, that was offered from behind her. Without gentleness, his face was scrubbed. Snorting, Anya removed the slight, offending appendage, as they'd already seen what they needed.

Thin, curved scars covered his face beneath the black soot and grim.

"Azgeda," roared Anya, for the entire camp to hear, and know what had been discovered.

Ulrin nodded when Clarke stood and looked to him.

"Delayed my party, and halved our number by separation in our riding from Polis. Drawing lines of fire, and feeding it." explained Ulrin.

Another woman, whose black war paint was nearly worn away, but remained evidence of Trikru, came from the darkness behind Ulrin.

"Anya, he speaks the truth." As she spoke, she pulled a heavy pack from her shoulders, and crossed the divide, kicking the captive as she went, to hand it directly to Anya. The young second at her side raised his torch up high again, as his leader dumped the contents upon the ground.

Anya snarled.

"Beeswax, seed oils, kindling, uncut spools of fuse, char cloths, tallow, and pine sap," recited the weary Trikru woman, pointing at the various containers now at Anya's feet as she listed off their contents.

"Fire starters," murmured Clarke, catching on.

"With this array, he could build fires even in the cold, and damp, hundreds of them," Yulian elaborated.

"He has not spoken much, but he did boast he is only one of a fifty men," revealed Ulrin, and his gaze returned to Clarke at her cry of horror.

"We sent back two of our party to Heda when we found him. This means war," added the Broadleaf woman, still hovering over the captive, who'd gone to silent to them all.

"Heda woke the tower once you had departed, to talk of Azgeda's treachery. All she needed was proof," finished Ulrin, his blue eyes locked upon Clarke's. She nodded.

Now they were openly at war.

 _And Roan was on the other side._

At a look from Anya, Caliban reached down. The Azgeda boy was not petite by any means, but looked insubstantial in Caliban's hands as the hefted the boy up. Clarke shivered. There went her chance of saving Azeda's spots in the bunker. As Caliban draed the boy farther into camp, Clarke followed. Though she knew the others followed, no one walked beside her, or stepped past.

As the crowd moved behind Wanheda, Anya let herself fall to the back. Ulrin kom Delfikru was her quarry now, and she positioned herself to walk at his side. Tight murmurs between them went hidden beneath the sloppy sounds of footsteps ahead.

As the talk behind them turned into how to deal with the captive, Caliban dropped him with a muffled splash into frigid mud. Leaned over to tighten the bindings of ropes, and then tie his wrists to his ankles behind his back. Flowing to either side of Clarke, the newcomers, and the Trikru refugees swarmed around, encircling the captive, leering down upon him.

With the prisoner cursing them all, with many words Clarke hadn't heard before, but could understand the jist of, Caliban stepped just far enough back to stand at her side.

"I am sorry, Wanheda," he rumbled quietly.

"For what?" asked Clarke.

The Azgeda arsonist's eyes found hers, and she stared down at him.

"I know you did not wish for war with Azgeda and it's prince,"

Clarke clenched her jaw, and barred her teeth, feeling a dark flush of satisfaction of the prisoner braced himself.

"My war will be with Nia, and she will not get away with this," she grit out, thinking of Sterling, icy cold, nearly blue. Of the search parties' returning with dead. Of the Trikru children crying now, terrified, and cold. Of 52 missing.

The circle around the prisoner fell silent to listen to Wanheda's quiet, deathly words.

"This will not stand, not while I live," swore Clarke, her eyes boring into the captive's.

Caliban nodded approvingly.

"Make him talk," ordered Clarke, looking up from the prisoner, to find that Ulrin kom Delfikru and Anya kom Trikru had come around the circle, to stand over the Azgeda, about opposite her. Both were watching her, but with very different looks, half-visible in the dark, on their faces.

A flash before her eyes, Lincoln, cross tied in the dropship, and Bellamy seeking her approval.

Of her mother wearing a noose, and stepping over the edge.

The penetration of a scalpel into her own chest.

Clarke straightened her back, and stared straight back at Anya's glare.

"Make him talk," she repeated.

Anya flashed a sharp glance at Clarke, before she turned away to bark at those crowding behind her. A few of the older seconds came forwards, a gap in the circle having opened at Anya's word, and within seconds, they had the captive stripped down to his pants.

Wrists tied again behind his back, ankles left free for now. They set him up on his knees, and stepped away. The first blow came from Anya's hand, a leather strap, wet and thin, across his face with a resounding snap.

Clarke didn't let herself look away. This wasn't Lincoln in the hands of angry criminal kids. Not her mother lost to ALIE. Not herself staying silent to save the world.

And the Trikru, the Delfikru, and the few others from Polis... she could feel their eyes upon her. So she watched, stiff, at Caliban's side, watching for any hint of breaking.

After the prisoner had bitten his tongue, opening up his mouth to release a flood of blood he spat at his captors, Anya forced a thick cloth gag into his mouth. Once she had it tied behind him, tight, and forcing his mouth to remain open, she stood looming over him.

"Keep him awake," Anya orders were short, but effective.

Sleep deprivation, by tomorrow night, he'd be more liable to talk.

Would that be soon enough to keep anymore of their numbers from dying?

The arsonist, his front all soaked in slowly drying blood, lay on his side, eyes swelling. He'd been pulled up to his knees again after being retied, but had fallen over when everyone stepped away. The ground was too soft to erect a pole to bind him for the night, and so, after much hissed discourse, ropes were cross tied, taunt, to scraggly trees with the captive between them.

With the screams silenced, and the interrogation at an end for now, the camp crept back into sleep warily. Trikru now had twenty sentinels around the perimeter, and Bellamy, and Miller had joined them, though Clarke knew everyone needed sleep, soon. With an ease Clarke had not anticipated, the Delfikru leader, his men, and the handful of other clans people had fallen into the temporary camp's ranks. Rolling out bedrolls that were soon damp as the rest, they had spread out, taking up spots wherever there was room. Sunrise wasn't far off by now. Even Anya finally lay down, on her back, with her sheathed sword across her chest, and her other hand resting upon the grip of a sword tied to her thigh.

In the Skaikru section, among the pitiful few of her people who'd made it here, Clarke lay on her right side, with her left hand curled defensively around her sword in it's sheath. The Trikru were grimly convinced Azgeda remained somewhere in their land, watching the devastation, and Clarke wasn't sure that wasn't just paranoia... but she wasn't convinced it was, either. When the conversations had broken up, Charlotte had followed Clarke, to lay down with her instead of rejoining the Trikru girl's tent. Despite the weathered bedroll of animal hide, Clarke could still feel the cold, soft muck that passed for ground here in this swamp. Overnight moistness seeped through the layers of leather into her furs, and straight to her skin. The dew that settled over top them all by dawn helped matters not at all. Not even when Roan had half-drowned her, and then dragged her onwards without a moment's pause, had Clarke ever felt so sodden. Not even when Roan had half-drowned her, and then dragged her onwards without a moment's pause, had Clarke ever felt so sodden. Thinking of the ice prince made her wonder just where he was now. And what did he know of the horror that plagued the south of his home?

"Where are you, Roan kom Azgeda,"wondered Clarke as she drifted off, settled again between Charlotte and Miller, finally, into the brief respite of sleep.

For days they watched the inferno rage in each direction. It hardly seemed that the fire could continue so long, for surely everything had been consumed by now, but the fire managed to feed on every last scrap of fuel made up of the dry leaves, trees, and moss. The captive had not lasted two nights in the hands of people who'd lost their home to him, and he'd died with one last taunting confession- that there had not been fifty with him, but two hundred. Whether the dying man spoke the truth or not was now irrelevant because they must assume the worst. Clarke didn't see much of Caliban, or Gaia, but Yulian was left behind in the temp camp more often than not, hovering near a pretty, young pregnant Trikru girl who'd gotten fed up with her matted, mud dried braids, and chopped them off unevenly at the base of her neck on day 2. The girl ignored Yulian with a sullen grudge, and the pair of them were ignored by the rest of Trikru.

The land beneath the flames blackened and shriveled, but the fire just wouldn't die. Only move on, leaving flickering embers covering the scorched ground.

At the river, Gaia prayed on her knees for rain.

Search parties went out.

Returned singed, and choking.

Except the one group of nearly a dozen that did not return at all. Two of the few Skaikru to make it to the wetlands are lost.

They carried in more bodies to lay beside Sterling at the river's edge, near frozen beneath icy, wet furs, than they did survivors. Another Azgeda boy. This one with crude, simple scars along his cheeks is dragged in- drowned in the river, his half-burnt, water soaked pack still strapped to his side. Another arsonist's supply. Four more Azgeda are found- one whom guts herself to avoid being taken in, bleeding out at the feet of Bellamy, two more dead of what Clarke can only assume was smoke inhalation, and the fourth is beaten to death on the riverbank.

The camp retreated half a days walk southwest, further into the marsh. Then another day's. The dead left behind at the first base camp.

The children, the old, the weak... began to die. Mary, too thin, anxious, pregnant Mary, was huddled in one of the few earth-walled shelters the Trikru had been able to set up in the wetlands with others, were at least the frigid wind couldn't reach, and their body heat could be contained. Clarke knew Mount Weather could save many of them, but the mountain was surrounded by flames that refused to die.

Seared skin and sopping clothes, stragglers appeared, struck mute by blistered throats.

Died gasping for air with burned lungs. Not all, but too many.

Nyko had a dozen pairs of hands at ceaseless work brewing nettle teas and preparing elderberry tinctures. The marsh was plentiful with plant life, at least, much of it strange, but at least some familiar. Useful. The river water needed purifying, and the camp was going through jug by jug faster than the lot of them could work. There were thick, foul smelling greenish brown pastes to lay thickly onto clammy chests.

The food carried with them was hardly enough to keep them fed through the first day, and the small, scarce mammals being hunted in the marsh, and the odd, skimpy fish from the rivers were carefully shared through the camp. It wasn't enough. Winter meant living off the land would have been hard enough on familiar ground. Here, it was taking every man, woman, and child who could stand on their feet to provide enough to keep the hunger at bay. The fire was driving many hibernating animals from their winter sleep, creating more prey, but they were fleeing the area as swiftly as they could.

As Clarke worked with Nyko, trying to care for the ill, whom had all been gathered close together, she saw little of those she'd traveled with, or the healthy members of Skaikru. Gaia, stripped of her devotee robes, was a frequent sight though, at work purifying water for the camp, set up not far from the sick.

Clarke had lost count of days.

She was trying to ignore this. Had it been three days, or four since she arrived? Five? It was blurring together with too few, too scattered rests. She slept on a soggy bedroll when she could. Had even snatched a nap alone at mid-day while the camp came to a halt for a late breakfast. Miller had woken her eventually with a handful of nuts, and two strips of hastily dried jerky. It might have been beaver meat, or worse, so Clarke chewed it without a question. He came with the news that Mary Eng now had a fever. Groaning as she straightened up, Clarke then headed for the tents.

The sky grew gry, and the clouds thickened as the afternoon wore on. They gathered low and obscured the sun for night to come hours early. The cold deepened. The hunters, and the search parties returned on quick feet. Lastly, the sentries drew in closer to camp.

Ducking out of a tee-pee style shelter made up of dozens of small mammal pelts, Clarke followed Nyko. He stood only steps outside. His tattooed face upturned to the grim sky.

"Rain?" Clarke voiced the hope of the entire area. Nyko turned in a slow circle, his eyes on clouds.

When he came to face Clarke, she noticed just how dark the shadows beneath his eyes had grown.

"If we are very lucky... snow,"

Leaning her head back, Clarke looked up as well.

It seemed Anya had already come to same conclusion. In awe, Clarke watched spindly limps and vines being twisted into shelter frames. They had little to cover the shelters with except the cast off, half-dried clothing the refugees had come in. For days, the children had been collecting soaked clothes from the river as it washed close to the bank.

But this, too, Trikru was hardly dealing with. More than a dozen people, mostly women, with a few boys, and some of the older men, sat cross legged on the least sodden spots of earth they'd been able to find at work, weaving. Their hands were flexing and twisting faster than Clarke could watch. Somehow the damp, tall grass strands were taking shapes into mats. Trikru children stood, fidgeting and watching the sky, holding up torches to light the work. Clarke recognized Tris. Anya's young second had shorn off her hair at her neck at some point, and had her head completely thrown back. A few feet away, Clarke realized that it was not some other Trikru girl, but Charlotte. Her own second had obviously followed Tris' example. Her bright blonde hair now ended somewhere around her jaw in uneven chunks.

Others were drawing in water, hastily boiling in over tiny campfires, and tucking the few jugs and bowls into the handful of shelters already erected. Would the river freeze, Clarke wondered. She meant to ask someone.

By the time, Anya bellowed for a cease in the day's work, night has long since fallen.

There were now enough shelters that the older children were being urged to crowd into the last couple. Some were so low that they must be crawled into. Clarke, despite the exhaustion of the entire camp, as Charlotte allowed Tris to tug her into a waist high, long sleeping shelter. Six or seven girls huddled inside together there, easing Clarke's worries for the night at least a little. Charlotte would be warm enough with the combined body heat in such tight confines.

Only the healthier adults and youth are left to sleep out in the open. Clarke nodded good-night to Caliban as she passed him setting up his bedroll defensively near the close-set grass huts. Nyko had explained that by setting them nearly on top of each other, and layering the frames and mats, they would hopefully stand up to the wind, and potential weight of snowfall. Their sloping sides would allow the snow to slide off, but the clans people were still concerned about the hasty shelters collapsing.

The camp falls into slumber with Anya stalking it's pathways reminding Clarke of the great panther who'd left it's mark upon her in another lifetime. Only the dim glow of the fires not far enough away, bordering the wetlands, lights her way.

Back to back with Miller, Clarke falls asleep staring towards those earthen shelters. Within them, the kids, the elderly, the ill, the pregnant mothers, would hopefully have an easier time tonight.

Bellamy lays directly beside the bulky flap made of a partially tied grass weaving. He was using his body to block the entrance for whatever good it would do. Monroe lay within with a phlegmy cough she'd developed, pale and clammy. Most of Skaikru lays behind Miller, though, who falls asleep watching the mass settle down. The intertwined Skaikru lay so close that they resemble one great lump.

Those sleeping outside are woken first.

Icy snowflakes are drifting down upon their faces. The mumbles and rustling begins as the camp revives. A shout comes, and with it, Anya slinks into view from the marsh ahead. She's grinning with feral twist, not minding the white flurries coating her hair and shoulders.

By some mutual decision, the awake quiet down again. In circles of families, and for the Skaikru, friends, they huddle. All is still, and waiting. Bellamy lets Clarke settle down at his side.

Gaia, carrying a torch for herself, wanders through the huddles. At each group, she murmurs a plea for prayers to be offered for the storm to grow. Most remain silent, but some do offer quick, mouthed words to the Flame. Skaikru sits in silence, but Clarke lowers her eyes respectfully, as does Miller at her other side.

Together, the gathered Trikru and Skaikru sit vigil.

They wait, they hope, they watch...

First the flurries blossom in size, and then they multiply. Everyone tightens their circles. Bellamy's stiff frame loosens. With a sudden jerk, he wraps an arm around Clarke to draw her nearer. Subtly shifting, Miller waits but one freezing moment to reclaim his position pressed into her other side, even as he averts his face from her and Bellamy.

"The answer to our prayers!" Gaia praised, huddled a few feet away, with a trio who'd invited her to pray with them earlier, and welcomed her to stay in their small circle afterwards.

The torches fail as the snow begins to fall in earnest, and hope bursts alive into the dark camp. With it come whispered exclamations.

"Here we go," Miller rumbled.

"All the gods that may be, please let it be enough," murmured Bellamy.

"If it'll just keep coming..." Clarke pleaded.

They squeezed together, and in the freezing darkness, relief finally came.


	13. For a Better Day

AN: The two year anniversary of this series past a week or two ago. I might be the slowest writer, ever, possibly. In light of that, I wanted to thank everyone reading this. My idea for a brief, open ended one shot certainly spiraled out of control. Really, thank you to all the readers, and especially those who leave comments.

Chapter 13

For a Better Day (Avicii)

 _66 days till the end_

Wind howled outside.

Despite shutters barred tight across them, window panes rattled. Outside was dark and bleak. A typical winter's late afternoon here in the land of ice and snow. Home. Roan was home. Grateful for it, too. Home had never been an easy place, not even when he was a boy and his father still lived. In the reign of his grandfather, perhaps, but Roan was not old enough to conjure up a single memory such an era. Roan did not ask for it be easy. Only for them to take him back. To remember who he was.

Warm enough to discard furs, and bright enough to make out the scars on your neighbor's face, the tavern was a comfortable refuge. The village was small enough that this appeared to be the only public house. In the back, the rented rooms were colder, but still offered shelter from the elements.

At a table near the man sized fireplace, Roan, smirking broadly, held court.

"And in Polis, who else did I find, but she herself! The Mountain Slayer! The Wanheda, princess of the stars! Twice as beautiful as they say, and blood as dark as the commander's own!" he boasted.

"Perimeter patrol won't last much longer," Seiku warned in an overtone.

Roan's eyes flickered to the low door, but his smirk returned. He called for another round of drinks.

"Black blood she willing shed to bind myself and she in a vow to bring our people together!" Roan held up his palm, the thick scar healed, but the pinkness of it still hinted at it's recent acquisition.

"Aye, but what say she of the torching of Trikru?" demanded the tavern keeper, disbelief written in his pursed mouth and narrowed eyes.

Roan grit his teeth, before baring them.

"Azgeda shows we are the stronger allies to hold than the weak Trikru," he dismissed.

"Everybody knows the sky people made their settlements in Trikru land. They're burning too," retorted another man, so far from the fire that he was still wrapped in thick wool.

"As if mere fire could trouble the commander of death," Roan grunted, shaking his head at their folly.

Then shouldn't we all be preparing to stand against her retribution?" asked Remy.

The royal healer was seated only a table away from the prince and his guard, but her shoulders were bowed, and her face weary.

The prince raised a brow knowingly. His mouth curved in a dangerous wolf's grin.

"Oh, we will stand, and so shall she, but in the end, Azgeda will show we are strong and valuable allies to the prisa kom skaikru," declared Roan.

Seiku tensed all over, eyes locked towards the door, and Roan knew his time had run out.

"Queen Nia-" began another of the patrons, but Roan scoffed.

"Sha, but am I not myself the heir to Theo's crown?"

Creaking in complaint, the thick oak door swung open. Nia's loyal trooped in from the freezing wind. The tavern shifted, flinching away. The villagers watched as the unit of royal guards approached the prince to report.

The mountain was cool, and dim inside. The rough rock walls were almost pretty. Back on the Ark, Charlotte had seen a film, once, about a place made from rocks, and she couldn't remember anything except that it had been so different. So many locked doors, and the key card Bellamy had given her had a picture of somebody they'd killed now covered by a sharp smelling black marker. Mt. Weather wasn't home. Couldn't be. Not after... Anyway, it wasn't Hundred Camp where her bedroll was crammed into a row of her people, between Clarke, or Harper, or Monroe... It wasn't Polis where she huge rooms of candles and wind chimes with Clarke or Octavia, but it was still better than the Ark. As long as she stayed out of medical.

Clarke said that the days of riding, and then their time in the wet, cold marsh were to blame for the throbbing ache in Charlotte's hip. The physical ache, at least. The mountain makes me ache, too, Clarke had confided. When Charlotte had asked, "where?", her mentor had swallowed hard, and whispered, "everywhere,".

Quiet as a mouse, Charlotte nosed through the shelves, the cabinets, the desk. She was supposed to be waiting for Clarke, and she was but... Mount Weather had not been truly occupied since the irradiation. The few previous visits by Skaikru couldn't change that. The delinquents had done a through job of emptying most rooms of clothing, photographs, and other personal items had been carted off to the extensive storage wing, along with striping the dining hall of all decoration, done on Clarke's orders. Yet it didn't mean the rooms were _empty._ Maps, and books, and paintings, and things Charlotte wasn't even sure of had been pushed out of the way in the hurried work of stripping the bunker.

"Oh!"

Jumping, and whimpering at the jolt of pain in her sore hip, Charlotte squeezed the crumbly copy of "The Art of Happiness" to her chest. As Clarke strode through the open doorway back into the office.

She hadn't expected her back so quickly, or maybe she hadn't been paying attention, thought Charlotte. The novitiates' teachers would not be pleased if she allowed herself to be surprised like this in their presence. Her own mentor, though, smiled at her, and Charlotte relaxed slowly. She loosened her grip on the fragile old book carefully.

Behind Clarke, a couple of boys, both Trikru, followed. Between them they carried a long oval table.

"Find anything interesting?" joked Clarke.

She was already turning her gaze towards the still crowded space where she wanted the table, to the far side of the room. The boys had come to a halt at the doorway- the table too wide, and they grumbled at each other.

"Well, um, actually," Charlotte shrugged as Clarke's face turned towards her again. "Maybe? In here," she indicted down to the bottom drawer of the desk.

With a groan at fingers caught in the door frame, the boys backed up again. Clarke cast a concerned glance at them, but both just bent their heads away from her gaze. Humphing, she focused back on Charlotte, who slipped her hand into a pocket, and withdrew a little bronze key. Dull from age, it didn't look like anything special.

Keycards, individualized to each person's living quarters, responsibilities, and privileges, took care of most everything. Combination locks secured the non-electronic spots.

Her palm up, she held it out to Clarke.

Not much in the mountain used actual metal key locks.

With a rowdy cheer, the boys maneuvered the now side-ways table through the door, and plunked it down just inside the room. Clarke's hands faltered.

"Thanks!" she said, watching the Trikru boys puff up at her gratitude. Without a word they headed for the cabinets and bookshelves she'd told them to move out of the way. They were cautious in their handling, she noticed. Determined to do their job well, even if it was just a bit of moving furniture.

Feeling Charlotte watching, Clarke used the key, and pulled open the bottom drawer of the massive presidential desk.

Atop a plain brown case, in black inky letters on a creamy envelope, was her name. Again.

Slamming the drawer shut, she didn't notice when both boys jumped, turning to her. The key dropped to the ground, once, twice, as her hands shook. Finally she got the lock turned, and shoved the key into her pocket. Standing there, her hand still grasped the key within the narrow pocket. Dante's face, weathered by age, stark white from generations of hiding... kind words, though condescending. The reminder of realizing he reminded her of Theolonious. The ghosts of Mount Weather had never really left. The boys were staring, and she shot them an impatient frown. They ducked their heads. She watched as they finally picked up the table she'd found to carry it out of the doorway. Swallowing down bile, Clarke pulled her hand from her pocket. So tightly she was holding the little, sharp edged key, it was biting into her palm. What had Dante had to say to the girl who'd murdered him? Stealing herself, she leaned back down.

"Clarke!" came Bellamy's voice from the doorway, and she straightened up to face him automatically.

All thoughts of Dante's face the last time she'd seen him were shoved away.

"Is the rover back?" she asked.

Standing in the doorway, blocking most of it with his frame, Bellamy's face was taunt.

"Yea, but that's what-"

Clarke's gaze sharpened over his shoulder, and he hesitated. Footsteps in the hall. Growing closer, and more numerous. Then Bellamy felt a hand push into his shoulder, spinning around, and moving backwards, he growled as he faced the offender. Got a smirk, all sharp edges and twisted red lips, for his trouble.

"Raven, hey," Clarke frowned.

Raven shoved back the thick traveling's cloak's hood awkwardly. Wick appeared next, waving slightly, his own trademark smirk missing. Both looked odd in the dusty cloaks.

"Horses suck," grumbled Raven, even as more people came around the corner.

"I thought you were staying-" began Clarke.

"Yea, until some... troops showed up and _escorted_ us straight back here," grit out Raven.

With a groan, Bellamy crossed the room, to stand by Clarke.

"Ulrin? I thought you'd be back in Polis by now," exclaimed Clarke, at the sight of the familiar red hair and ruddy cheeks, but his expression finally hit her. "What's wrong?"

Ulrin looked grim, and grave, "I met an envoy of Heda's half-way along, and turned back to ride with them,"

"The envoy?" asked Clarke.

But Aden had appeared, a riding cloak still across his shoulders, his cheeks darkly flushed. Clarke heard a quick inhale behind her, and realized it was Charlotte.

"Wanheda," he greeted, his still boyishly high voice bleak, but before he could say more, leather boots on stone floors echoed. He moved aside from the doorway slightly, eyes flicking past Clarke as he did.

Narrow eyed, Luna kom Floukru slunk into the room, looking this way, and that with a fleeting gaze.

On the heels of the renegade nightblood appeared Indra, dressed for war, face painted with the black paint barely distinguishable from her dark skin in the dimly light office.

She wasted no time. That was par for the course with her, at least.

"Wanheda, there is much too discuss," announced Indra.

Clarke looked around the assembly, and pursed her lips. She threw a look at the boys who'd been helping her, still standing behind the table they'd brought her.

"Find Miller, Anya, and Caliban," she instructed.

"Gaia too," put in Indra, and Clarke offered the general a briefly apologetic smile after nodding at the boys who had looked to Clarke instead of immediately obeying.

"Anyone else we need?" asked Clarke, even as she began waving everyone over to the table.

Shrugging, Raven and Wick flopped down into the closest two chairs happily, but the rest shifted about the room warily.

"Sinclair. He's probably still in Medical with Miller and Jackson," suggested Bellamy, low enough for Clarke at his side to hear, but not many of the rest.

She repeated the name to the boys. Piping up, Charlotte volunteered to go too, and darted away, making it out of the door before the boys. The pair looked at each other as if they hadn't known it was a race, eyes widened, and mouths opened. Then with growing grins, they were off, too.

Aden watched them go with a bit of a frown, but straightened it out a breath later.

Bellamy looked the table up and down, squished a couple chairs closer together, and dragged Wallace's desk chair, rather, Clarke's desk chair, over and sat it at the head of the table. Clarke raised a brow, but lowered herself down pointedly.

"Sit, please," she repeated.

With one heavy boot coming down quietly against the stone floor, Indra paused, eyeing the occupants again. Clarke smiled at her, knowing it felt, and must look, rather strained. Certainly the withering glare it earned from Indra was proof of that. Nevertheless, the Trikru woman slowly took the chair at the foot of the table. Once she was seated, the rest fell into place to either side. Ulrin sat at the middle of the table with his back to the wall. Bellamy took up position over Clarke's shoulder, standing. The rest spread out.

The silence grew, heavy and tight.

Anya, and Caliban arrived together, barely minutes later, silent, but nodding deferentially to Indra, and Caliban at least, to Clarke.

Gaia came next. The young priestess smoothly ignored the open seat at her mother's right hand, to instead settle beside Raven, near the middle of the table.

It took a few more minutes, but at last Sinclair walked in beside Miller, looking shiftily around, spotting Clarke and Bellamy hastily. He hurried over. Miller walked slower, falling behind, and assessing the room with quite a lot more discretion.

Sinclair reached the head of the table, eyeing Clarke anxiously.

"Did you-" he began.

"No," barked Bellamy, glaring.

Clarke looked up at Bellamy at his sharp tone, and then to Sinclair, reading his uncomfortable expression.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

"We-" began Sinclair again.

"It can wait," Bellamy said.

He titled his head towards the table, where most of the occupants were at least pretending not to listen in. Indra however made no attempts at such falsehood. The Trikru leader sat stiffly, her spine a straight iron rod, and her eyes watched them avidly.

Perhaps it _should_ wait, conceded Clarke silently.

Huffing out a deep breathe, she waved her hand towards a seat for Sinclair. He had barely lowered himself when Indra launched into the issues at hand.

By the digital clock upon the wall, just beside the door that lead out to the hallway, the meeting was well into it's second hour as it finally drew to it's end.

A meeting that could have been an email, Wick had joked, an hour ago.

The grounders didn't have the knowledge to appreciate it, and Clarke's humor was resting somewhere close to rock bottom levels, had been for _years_ at this point, but the conspiratorial tone the young engineer had whispered in made her grin anyway- a bubble of laughter growing, and just barely escaping.

Another hour of deliberation and rehashing ground out even Wick's sense of humor.

The less easy-going among them were near clawing their way out by then.

With a slow, fidgeting habit so familiar, the point of Anya's knife rested on the table as she spun it. It made Clarke think of Lexa, but, she thought, ignoring whatever argument Anya was repeating yet again, it must have been Lexa who picked it up from her mentor.

Indra leveled Anya with a stare. "The peacekeepers are under your command, but they are not to enter the mountain," she barked. "All those who survive beneath Wanheda's roof must answer to her. So says Heda,"

Anya's face flashed as if struck, and Ulrin snorted at her reaction.

"Heda also wishes for Wanheda to lock the doors now, and remain in the safety," added Aden, eyes lowered wearily to the gleaming table they gathered around.

Jutting out her lower lip, Clarke shook her head, causing her loose strands to flutter down from her braided crown. Bellamy laid a hand upon her forearm, but she edged away.

"Second Dawn needs Sinclair, and there's still others who need to make the trip. The doors will remain sealed from here on out, but I can't just hide in here months early," she objected.

"If Heda commands it-" hissed Anya,

"I will do as I must," snapped Clarke, cutting off the other curtly.

"Disobedience is punishable by-" threatened Anya.

The table startled, all eyes falling upon the commander's novitiate, when he slapped both palms onto he table as he stood.

"It wasn't an order," Aden said. His eyes swept around the gathering. "Heda sent _no_ orders other than the sealing of the mountain,"

"Aden and I ride back to Polis after we rest, in the morning, will you ride with us?" Ulrin asked.

Clarke shook her head. "If this bunker needs to be locked down, I won't be ready by morning. Maybe a day or two, I don't know... but I will come as soon as I can,"

"You'll need to bring a unit with you," began Aden,

"The rover's back, right?" Clarke finally looked back to Bellamy.

"Yea, but we gotta talk-" Bellamy reminded, though she cut him off. Again.

"I'll come in the rover as soon I can," Clarke assured Aden and Ulrin.

"We ought to break, but reconvene with the morning. The commander's peacekeepers will not be far behind, and should arrive before sunset tomorrow," declared Indra.

"Dinner's being served by now," Clarke said, looking up at the clock again.

She then smiled up at Charlotte, where the young girl still hovered over her shoulder.

"Charlotte, please show Aden, and the others, the way to the dining hall?" asked Clarke, with a tired smile.

Cheeks flushing, Charlotte ducked her head, but murmured a soft "sha," before clearing her throat, and asking the visitors to follow her in easy trig.

The meeting adjourned for now, with Ulrin walked out with the Trikru representatives who followed Aden and Charlotte.

Luna literally darting off, presumably to the bunkroom where Bellamy had sent the Floukru clan, just Skaikru was left in Clarke's office. Miller was frozen like a statue beside the door.

Clarke was left looking around in frustration. Raven and Wick appeared as clueless as she, but the rest- Bellamy, Miller, and Sinclair were obviously sitting on some news.

"Ok, now what?" she demanded, rolling her shoulders, shifting and stretching after too long sitting too tense.

"Just... c'mon," muttered Miller.

Groaning, Clarke stood back up, and gestured impatiently for them to lead the way. Bellamy gave her a lopsided smirk.

As the made their way towards medical, Clarke was every much aware of the tension between Bellamy, Sinclair, and Miller. It couldn't mean anything good. Obviously they were feeling secretive about it, too. So instead of asking, and being brushed off, again, she tried to wait, somewhat patiently.

"So Gina did decide to come?" asked Clarke as she walked with Bellamy towards medical.

He nodded. "She worked in Redistribution on the Ark, but in Arkadia, she was apparently helping out in medical. Friends with Jackson now, I guess. He vouched for her,"

At the same time, Bellamy and Clarke pushed the main med doors open, holding them back as they went through, for the next in to catch.

There were voices from beyond the little waiting area, as Jackson and Gina poked around, but Clarke didn't notice them.

On the floor, sat a pair of little girls, on either side of a dark haired boy, who was gently cradling an ancient book, and reading from it slowly. Voice gentle, and hesitant, he stumbled over an unfamiliar phrase, just before looking up at their entrance.

Clarke whirled on her heel, glaring at Sinclair, and Miller too.

"What did you do?" she demanded.

"Who is it?" demanded one of the girls, her hands helping support the heavy book they were sharing yet somehow still managing to dig her elbow into his side.

"Uhhh... Nathan... Clarke..." the boy replied, whisper-quiet. At the names, the girl's face tightened into a scowl that was overlooked by most of the room.

"Jackson! Martin! Get out here!" barked Bellamy, taking up a spot leaning against the wall of the waiting room.

"Did Arkadia let them come?" Clarke hissed, looking between Sinclair and Miller.

With an apologetic smile on his face, Jackson crept into the waiting area, Gina not far behind him. Hearing them, Clarke spun around again.

"Tell me you didn't kidnap these children?" Clarke demanded.

Gina winced, but covered it up with a bright, false smile. Jackson had no such articice. His shameful moue was honest, and Clarke's shoulders heaved. Her head bowed, with a crushed groan.

"As if Arkadia isn't going to have a problem with this," bit out Bellamy.

He remained leaning against the wall, but there was nothing causal or relaxed about him.

"What have you done?" asked Clarke.

The kids stayed quiet, and Clarke avoided looking at them.

Jackson's face wavered, and he wrung his hands, trying to come up with words to explain, and Gina was chewing her lip, somewhere between sullen and sorry. Her hands rested upon her hips, balled into fists.

"What. Have. You. Done?" repeated Clarke her eyes roving over the undoubtably guilty pair.

"They must have sneaked out of Arkadia to go explore the woods and were tragically lost- no bodies found." explained Miller, as he walked to stand where she could see him, even though she turned a silent snarl upon him as he did.

Jackson grimaced, and pulled her attention back to him. Clarke's eyes narrowed to furious slits.

"Jackson?" snapped the blonde coldly.

"The lists haven't been finished, right?" returned the young doctor weakly.

Scoffing, Clarke rolled her eyes.

"That's not the point! Yes, we have room, and yes, kids would get the first spots. But don't you think they are really going to not notice that we've kidnapped five of their few small children?" grit out Clarke, as she folded her arms under her chest restlessly.

"They play together, and have been seen trying to slip out of camp previously." reported Gina hastily.

"You mean on the same day, you, one of the only two doctors, and the most senior engineer left?" Bellamy's tone was dry, and scathing.

"We can't afford more problems with Arkadia right now," reasoned Clarke.

"Supposedly, nobody actually denied any requests about this..." Miller assured her.

"We just didn't... ask," agreed Gina.

"They're actually _kids._ They need someone to _raise them. Not just babysit,_ " reminded Clarke coolly.

"They're attached to Gina!" offered Jackson sincerely, his whole posture tensed, but growing hopeful.

Rubbing her hands over her face, Clarke's shoulders slumped again. Looking to Bellamy, her eyes were uncertain. Their eyes held each other's for a long, silent moment.

Bellamy broke the gaze first, his face flickering the barest touch, glaring back at the Jackson and Gina. Clarke's gaze followed his, but then shifted to Miller pointedly.

"Jackson, Miller, if Arkadia freaks, it's up to you to smooth things out," she ordered. Bellamy huffed out a still irritated breathe.

"Does that mean we can stay?" a little voice piped up, high and thin.

Clarke finally let herself look back at the kids. The tiniest of them, Lyra, Clarke remembered, had been the one to ask, and her wide, hazel eyes were locked upon Clarke.

"Welcome to the Clan of Skaikru," she announced, trying to relax her tight posture as she, finally, acknowledged them.

The little girl's mouth quivered with the flash of a smile, and a gap of two missing teeth.

The boy opened his mouth, as if to say something, but the older girl, on his other side, beat him to it.

"Clarke," she said, questioningly, titling her head, uncertain where Clarke was in the room.

"Hey, Reese," offered Clarke, making her voice clear and certain.

The girl shifted to face Clarke perfectly, already scowling at her.

"You didn't come back," she accused.

"Ree," Orion censored, his face uncertain, and the younger girl curled closer into his other side.

"It's ok, Orion," murmured Clarke gently, eyes lingering over them, before focusing back on Reese. Not that the older girl would have known Clarke's gaze had shifted. "Reese is right. I didn't. I'm sorry,"

"We waited, but you didn't come back," accused Reese again.

Clarke nodded, feeling the weight of not just Reese, and everyone else in the room, but of everyone who'd ever had to think that about her.

"Things happened," she began.

"Just like I said they would," mocked Reese, sharp and quick, and Clarke surprised even herself by huffing out a laugh. A smirk, just a tiny twist of her lips, appeared on Reese's lightly tanned face, and Clarke eased.

"You were definitely right," admitted Clarke, making Miller, and even Gina snort.


	14. Run Like a Rebel

_AN:_ Thanks for the reviews!

Jo Hamel, you never know with Roan. :D

 _Chapter 14 Run Like a Rebel_

 _Previously_

"We waited, but you didn't come back," accused Reese again.

Clarke nodded, feeling the weight of not just Reese, and everyone else in the room, but of everyone who'd ever had to think that about her.

"Things happened," she began.

"Just like I said they would," mocked Reese, sharp and quick, and Clarke surprised even herself by huffing out a laugh. A smirk, just a tiny twist of her lips, appeared on Reese's lightly tanned face, and Clarke eased.

"You were definitely right," admitted Clarke, making Miller, and even Gina, snort.

 _66 days till the end, continued_

"Where's Jasper?" asked Clarke

Nobody answered her. Shifting, she looked around the room, reading the reactions, the glances away of Sinclair, Miller and Gina, the kids' shiftiness, Jackson's downcast eyes...

"Did he stay in Arkadia?" she asked slowly.

Jackson bit into his cheek, before shaking his head softly. Gina moved over to the kids, sitting down on the small sofa they were leaning against. Out of the corner of her eye, Clarke saw her bump Lyra gently, drawing the kid's attention to her. Swallowing, Clarke refocused onto Jackson. Jackson, who looked so... guilty?

"Then where is he? What's wrong?"

"I think he may need some time to himself," Jackson said.

But he wasn't looking at her. Or anyone else. The colorless carpet beneath their feet held his gaze.

"Is he okay?," Clarke asked.

She looked to Miller, who shrugged, slightly, but his expression was relaxed enough, not that she was no longer snarling, to ease her own nerves.

"Could use the surveillance cameras to find him. They're functional," Wick suggested, bouncing restlessly in place, just enough to annoy Raven.

Clarke looked between Jackson, and Miller

"Is he okay?" she repeated.

Jackson looked dismayed, she realized, but when Miller meet her eye, she waited.

At his nod, she turned to Wick slightly. "For now, we'll give him space, but you could keep an eye out when you hit the command center,"

On Clarke's heels, Raven followed. With a frown, Raven sped up, shoving past Blake to fall into step with Clarke. Whatever had happened since they'd parted had worn off some of that twinkly princess vibe The blonde's sickly pallor and hollowed cheeks didn't fit with her quick, determined stride.

"This is one of the primary residence levels," they heard Miller explaining behind them.

"Stats?" Sinclair asked.

"Five bunkrooms, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Each meant to house fifty long-term. After the population fell, they only housed a handful of young adults at a time," answered Wick eagerly, remembering this level from previous visits into the mountain.

"There's also ten two bedroom suite on the other side of this floor. Units FI-X. Families get first priority, but for now none are occupied." Miller added.

"Trikru is in Alpha and Beta bunkrooms," Clarke called over her shoulder, pointing out the two left side doors, a huge ways apart. "Skaikru is in Gamma- at the end of this hall."

"And we've put Floukru in Delta and Epsilon for now," Bellamy titled his head towards the right side doors, directly apposite the Trikru's doors.

"There will be some shuffling around, of course, but for now, everyone's happy enough to be crowded in," explained Clarke.

"I hear you've got a sweet presidential suite," Wick crowed. He walking on Sinclair's other side, and grinning at the back of Clarke's head, waiting for a reaction.

Clarke flushed darkly, but didn't pause as she took the last few steps to reach the last door of the wing.

"It's not that much bigger than FI-X suites, and Charlotte and Miller are both sharing with me," Clarke said.

She swiped her keycard, and swung the door open after the low beep. The first to scurry inside was Raven, and she let out a whistle.

"Man, somebody's been busy re-outfitting these digs," she pointed out.

The last trip into the mountain, had found all these bunkrooms with twenty out of the twenty-five bunks pushed together, lining the back wall, taking up as little room as possible, and little else inside. The paraphernalia inventoried and carried off to the storage rooms had indicated only four men, or older boys, had lived here.

Now all the bunks were evenly spaced with walking room between them. The faded, holey blue hangings were pulled back on about half of the beds, exposing bare mattresses. Sinclair edged around the others to look around. Bookshelves, cabinets, tablet stations, and narrow desks lined the wall to either side of the entry door. All were notably empty. A plain door without locks stood on both the left and right walls, dead center of the room.

"Communal bathroom," indicated Bellamy to the left, "Communal storage," with a jerk of his head to right.

Off to one side, by the communal storage door, was the expanded sitting area. Instead of the lonely table, and two couches, the room offered four tables, with extra chairs in front of the sleeping area, and a half-dozen sofas, and a handful of armchairs, with coffee tables tucked close to them in the sitting. A projector screen took up a huge chunk of the wall by the sitting area.

"Where is everybody?" asked Wick curiously, following Raven inside.

"Either working, or exploring, or still in med bay," offered Clarke.

Sinclair wandered around the room, eyeing everything curiously. The bunkbeds themselves were the most interesting part. At each end, a double door metal wardrobe was built right into the bed frame. Beneath the lower bunk were built-in drawers- two to each side, and like the wardrobes, equipped with combination locks. Each bunk was enclosed by the curtains, separately, with the top covered by a tent-like frame. The beds were still dusty, but there was a hint of chemical cleaner in the air, so the room cleaning had at least not been totally neglected.

"Near medical, there is a sixth bunkroom, but it's a lot smaller. No built-ins. Planning to keep it empty to use in case of illness," commented Clarke.

"C'mon, Reyes, share with me," goaded Wick, heading down the rows towards the bathroom, looking for a free bed farther from the hallway door.

"Fine, but I call top!" squealed Raven, darting past him.

With a triumphant yell, she threw herself up onto a top bunk, directly beside the side of the room's wall. Laughing at his complaints, she taunted him merrily.

"Loser!" Raven declared, sing-song.

"Betrayed by my beloved," sighed Wick, falling backwards onto the bunk beneath her, hand over his heart, and heartbroken moue upon his face.

Raven stuck her head over the edge and snickered.

"Gods, you're such a dork," she accused.

As Wick continued to grumble dramatically, Raven disappeared.

"Hey, check out the interior wardrobe access!" she called from where she was hidden in the hangings of her own bunk.

Sinclair rolled his eyes, marked where they were going to be sleeping, and strode off in the opposite direction.

Clarke laughed out loud, making Wick roll out of his newly claimed bunk and hit the ground with a heavy thump, as Sinclair threw his Ark-issue jacket down on the bunk farthest from his proteges.

"Linens are in the store room," offered Miller, blank faced.

Bellamy smirked, but looked back to the where Gina was exploring the bookshelves, Jackson the beds, and the kids were wandering off, Orion and Reese hand-in-hand, Lyra creeping into the bathroom.

"The kids should stay in the chief medical officer's quarters, but it's up to you who stays with them," he advised Jackson and Gina.

The pair looked between them.

"We'll sort living arrangements out better later, just pick something for now," Bellamy added.

"I'll take a bunk, you stay with the kids," offered Jackson calmly to Gina, who shrugged.

"Ok, dinner. Now. Everybody," Bellamy directed.

Clarke and Miller exchanged a glance, remembering all else that remained undone.

"We've got to check on Floukru. Luna's not exactly happy, and if they're not at dinner, I've got to make sure they're fed," Clarke explained.

Miller let the door swing closed before pressing his boot back into it. The soft thud, and series of clicks let him know the locks had engaged as he watched the girls say their goodnight.

The sleepy kid was clinging a bit, so he joined them, and pried her off Clarke. She bent a bit to press a soft kiss to Charlotte's blonde locks before nudging her towards bed. Miller ruffled her hair, and murmured goodnight as well. Charlotte tried choking back a yawn even as she wandered off to her room.

When Miller looked back to Clarke, she was watching him, looking just as tired.

"Bed?" she asked.

He shrugged, "let me get some water first,".

As he headed for the tiny kitchenette, he heard the bedroom door open. Gulping down a fragile glass of water, he closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly. Though there was only a tiny refrigerator sitting on the counter beside the microwave, and a two shelf pantry, there was at least a sink with free flowing water. As much as you could drink. As he refilled his glance, he chuckled, realizing this water his favorite thing about the mountain. Never mind the projection screens and odd, brightly colored videos from before the Catalyst, the computer full of recipes for sweets and delicacies, and the instructions for growing what was needed to make such frivolous indulgences, the sealed rooms... there was water. No rationing, no lugging it yourself, no calling for a servant, no washing off from a communal trough in the training yards. Slower, he finished off a second glass full.

The walls within the mountain were thick enough, and the doors so well sealed that he couldn't even tell if, on the other side of the small communal space, Charlotte was still moving around in her bedroom. Opposite Charlotte's side, Clarke had clearly left open their door as he could hear her getting ready for bed. There was even a third room, separated from Charlotte's by a efficient bathroom. The presidential suite really wasn't that much bigger than the other family size suites, and time had worn away the glamour. But enough remained to hint that it had begun it's life as a plush oasis.

Once the first night had passed of everyone merely sleeping where they fell, Trikru, and Ulrin kom Delfikru had insisted upon the grandest suite being Clarke's own quarters. Miller suspected that the Delfikru chief had hopes of sharing it with her in time, but the man had not dared imply it, so for now, Miller would let the issue lie. When Clarke offered him a spot within it, he hadn't been surprised. Whether it was her wanting companionship, or if she was using him as a shield against unwanted advances, he didn't know. Or care. Whatever was needed, he'd be there.

Nathan, had, though, expected to be in one of the smaller bedrooms. Perhaps, eventually, he would claim the last one for himself.

It was just that, when they'd shuffled in, exhausted, that second night in the mountain, she'd left the master bedroom door open, and he'd automatically followed. By morning, Charlotte had appeared on Clarke's other side, but the bed was freaking huge. Bigger than even the best he'd seen in Polis. They could've let Octavia and Wells both join them, and still had room at the bottom of the bed for Bellamy to sulk sideways. Kid hadn't even woken him up when she crept in. Her, and Clarke, and him too, frankly, slept better together.

The next night, he'd half expected Clarke to suggest he take his own room, but she didn't. Hadn't in the days since. It worked.

Refilling the glass a third time, this he carried with him.

Quietly shut their bedroom door behind him, and laughed at what he found.

Sitting cross legged on her side of the enormous bed, Clarke was meticulously drawing a stiff brush through her hair. Dropping the brush to her lap as if scolded, she glared up at him. Lower lip pushed out in a pout.

Last night, he'd caught her counting strokes, and had taunted her till he teared up from laughing at her new obsession.

"There were bugs! And slime! And it was _green!"_ she reminded him tartly, delicately scooping up the brush and depositing on her side table.

He snorted. "Last week."

Despite her flushed glare, she accepted the glass wordlessly, and gulped the first half down greedily.

Grinning at the sigh of appreciation, Nathan headed for the bathroom. It happened to be his second favorite part of the mountain. If he never saw another poorly arranged latrine created by idiot kids from space, he might be alright. He left the door open as he washed up.

"Wanna bet on whether she shows up before or after midnight?" he called out.

He heard her groan from the bedroom. "Don't tease her! She's trying!".

"She doesn't have to. She could just come to bed," he pointed out.

Clarke finished her water, and hastily gathered her freshly brushed hair into a single braid to sleep.

"I think she just wants some independence,"

Miller grunted at that, non committal, and finished up getting ready for bed.

When he left the bathroom, Clarke was already up the blankets, only the collar of her faded, forest green flannel nightshirt still visible. He crawled into his side. The foam mattress was soft, and thick, welcome relief to lay upon.

"Independence really isn't a Skaikru thing. We're more of a co-dependent pack," he teased.

Even as he said it, he settling onto his left side. Clarke scooted into place.

"Some of the kids have pushed the bunkbeds together to sleep beside each other," Clarke admitted.

"Trikru still calls us puppies after seeing us sleep all piled up on each other," he reminded.

Their backs pressed perfectly together, both finally relaxed.

"The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," she muttered.

"Huh?"

"Just something from a book I read on the Ark,"

He grunted. "Sounds right. Besides, this isn't home. No matter how comfy we might get, nobody's gonna forget that. Our people need to stay close, even if makes us puppies,"

"Wolves," murmured Clarke drowsily, her voice muffled a bit against the pillow, "We're more like wolves,".

Hundred Camp was lost. Their home, taken from them. Where they'd grown together. Where they buried their dead. When they'd reached Mt. Weather, Clarke had set out again, returning to their home. Just to see what remained. The dropship remained, but all their work around it had crumbled to ash. The scorched forest would support no one. At least they'd had some of their stores safely within the dropship. Those had now been carried into the mountain, and here they would stay. More than two months early, but still. It wasn't home, but they had to find a way for it to be. They couldn't spend five years suffering here from guilt, and shame. Her people were here. She had to make it their home. Too few of them, but all that could be found. Wherever they are, is home for her too. For Skaikru, Clarke will live among her ghosts and sins. Anything for her people. She couldn't leave them again, not over Mt. Weather, not over anything. They'd need to start deciding which Arkadians to offer spots under Skaikru's banner to.

It was, as Miller had wanted to bet, before midnight when Charlotte crawled into bed, sandwiching Clarke in the middle. Her light footsteps on the old carpet, and even the opening of the door were quiet enough that she didn't disturb either of them. Soon she was back asleep. Though they all dreamed, they did not wake, and by morning, all was forgotten.

 _~~~ 65 days till the end ~~~_

The medical ward was the dullest place Monroe had ever been stuck.

Considering ten years of classes on the Ark, followed by Skybox, she considered that to be an insult. Clarke's diagnosis of double pneumonia wasn't keeping Monroe in this awkward bed. That was more about the coughing that bent her in half every time she walked away from it. The Arkadian doctor had promised to figure out something from the medicine stock that would help, but until then, he'd just backed Clarke up. Monroe was stay in this wobbly, creaky bed, dying of boredom. The new doctor had sent half the ward out to find a bed with their people this morning, and the half that remained weren't in any shape to be of any interest she'd learned already.

Laid back with her head resting on the pillow, and her eyes closed to avoid the same sight as the last week above her, she was ignoring the sounds around her. The doors swung open, but the doctor had been in and out constantly, so Monroe didn't pay it any attention.

"Hey," Bellamy's voice, pitched low, carried to her unexpectedly.

Monroe looked up, in time to watch him cross the ward.

"Clarke around?"

Monroe shook her head.

"Arkadia's been radioing," Bellamy announced

"They finally noticed they're missing three kids?" asked Monroe.

"Apparently they were busy yesterday," he replied shortly.

"With what?" she demanded, hands on hips.

He threw his hands up, "they wouldn't say,"

"Get Miller to radio his dad," she suggested.

The art storage halls were more crowded than Clarke remembered. Everyone healthy enough to had been working non-stop since entering the mountain, grounder and skaikru alike. One of the first tasks had been to complete the stripping down that Raven and Wick had instigated on their trips after the fall. With it done, all the artwork that Dante Wallace had spread out within the mountain was now deposited right back where he'd found it. There was hardly space to walk, much less sit and admire any of the pieces.

"There you are," Clarke said, but oh, no, she thought.

Huddled between two stacks of wrapped paintings was Jasper.

Without his googles, but in his arms was a fabric wrapped bundle, clutched tight to his chest. His eyes seemed huge in his thin, miserable face.

"I got there too late,"

His confession was quiet, and his voice frail.

"I'm sorry," Clarke whispered, lowering herself down. At his knees was as close as she could get with his tight refuge among the forgotten artwork.

"He was waiting on me, but I was too late," he continued.

"It wasn't your fault, Jasper,"

He sniffled, and scooted a bit out of his hiding spot towards her. Clarke wrapped her arms, and he let his head drop heavily onto her shoulder. Tired, nearly silent sobs shook his whole frame. Hot tears hit her bare collarbone.

"I'm so sorry. I should've got you there sooner,"

He cried in her arms, and she didn't notice when tears began to slid down her cheeks. "Oh Jasper, it wasn't your fault,"

Jasper, in pain, again, hugging her like he never would have done after Mt. Weather before. Like he never would again if he ever knew enough. Remembered enough. He cried for the last chance at something of family, and she cried for everything that had ever hurt him in either life.

Nothing can last forever, not even tears. When they slowed, Jasper choked down a last sob, and straightened up uneasily.

He lowered the bundle that had been pressed between them to his lap. His long, shaking fingers unwrapped it carefully.

Worn, soft cotton with a pattern and colors long since faded into obscurity first. Then a sheet of yellowed plastic cross tied with two thin cords, and there lay a homemade book. Tatty, and bound with scrap material.

"It's, uh, two hundred, and forty-seven years old. About that," said Jasper.

"So fifty years after the Catalyst," Clarke said, wiping her face, yet curious.

"Yea, uh... when the One-Child Act became law," he explained, hoarse and sniffling.

Jasper gently lifted the threadbare cover, and written inside, onto cardboard, so large they stretched from side to side, in thick, faded grey letters-

 **The Book of Records**

Beneath it, words had been added, smaller, in scripts by different hands.

Blood is thicker, wrote one, and another, the truth we find is greater than the lie we believed. Clarke swallowed, and traced the uneven edges of the pages. Some were uniformly printed white, others the thin, greyish recycled sheets used by the lower forms in school.

"Oh, stars,"

Jasper looked up from the tome to meet her eyes.

"I never knew how many second children there. Nobody did,"

"How?" Clarke asked, "why?"

Jasper shook his head. "Maybe he would've told me, if I'd made it soon enough," his voice broke.

"Do you... do you know who he was, to you?" she asked.

Jasper looked back down to the book, and flipped the pages slowly to near the back. Pointed.

First Born, Approved: Sypros Himura, Age 8

Second Born, Adopted Out: Lillian St. Claude, official birth date changed to... Adoptive parents Francis St. Claude and Rey St. Claude nee Kim moved to Argo following the official placement.

"His little sister... Lillian St. Claude was my dad's mom," Jasper announced dully.

"But how... how could they hide the adoptions?"

"If the 2nd child was discovered under two, they just found anyone willing to take them. Moved stations. Extra rations to buy their cooperation," he explained thickly.

"Anybody we know?" she asked, staring down at the pages. Bracing herself.

He shook his head. "It looks like the implants really did improve, or the government got better at keeping them secret,"

She sighed. "Without interrogating Jaha, we probably won't figure out which it was, but he's still difficult to get information out of,"

"Well, um, there is a reminder ever hundred pages or so that the records are incomplete. There's always the possibility that some were missed. One of the keepers even explains a theory that some second, or even third, children were never discovered..."

"That they managed to live their lives in secret?" Clarke breathed.

"Uhuh," confirmed Jasper, he hesitated, but then forged on.

He carefully flipped to the back cover. Clarke titled her head to get a better angle. Jasper open the velcro'd, narrow pouch, and manveruoed something out of it. More than one. Into her hand, he dropped one by one, a dozen or so USB drives.

"Some are just more in-depth personnel and genealgy records," he explained, turning them over till he could point out the numbers on them, "You know there were a lot of name changes in the first couple generations, and the records were lost. Well, the official ones were, but somebody saved them. So that's some of the USBs, but only the first seven are listed in the book, so I don't know about the rest. It looks like Sypros never had anybody to turn this over to... I think... I think he wanted to give it to me. That's what Jackson thinks, and I mean, he was basically the only one Spyros talked to it sounded like..."

Hands cupped together to hold them all, Clarke offered them back to him.

"Bring it to Raven, or Wick, they'll get you set up so you can go through it, or you can wait and bring it to Monty,"

He cleared his throat, wincing at the thought of sharing this with anyone else for now.

"I'll, uh, wait for Monty, you know, if it's okay,"

"This is your med bay, but I do want you to work closely with Nyko. You can trust him, okay?"

The medical wing was noisy in a way Clarke had never known it. Monroe, sitting up on her bed sulkily, and Mary, sleeping restlessly, were at the very back, and nearly every bed between them and the ward's doors were filled.

"We need to be working on a plan for Reese. With her vision so low, she's basically blind, right?"

At Jackson's nod, Clarke sighed.

"Well, Mount Weather isn't going to be much more accessible for her than Arkadia was," Clarke ventured.

"Safer, at least,"

"I know you're going to have your hands full, but I need you to deal with this. You understand her vision, and you understand living in a confined space. Get whoever you need to help. Find a way to help her live here without relying on her friend completely," directed Clarke.

He hesitated, but accepted it slowly.

"The first step to some limited independence for her would be learning to use a cane to maneuver," he suggested.

Clarke smiled. Her eyes lit up. "Make it happen."

The double doors swung open, slamming into the cushioned panels to either side to the muffle the impact. Charlotte came hurtling through, and crashed straight into Jackson.

"Ooof!" he grunted, narrowly avoiding falling backwards when Clarke jumped to steady them both.

"Where's the fire, kid?" he asked.

Flinching back, Charlotte gave him a dirty look. He meant no harm, but Clarke winced at the phrase.

She focused onto Clarke.

"The army's here!" she squeaked.

"Get Bellamy," instructed Clarke automatically, and before she'd closed her mouth, Charlotte turned on her heel and sprinted back off. With her hands extended before she, she threw the doors open again.

"Good thing the doors swing both ways," commented Jackson.

Jackson followed Clarke out of the main ward.

"The list has been updated to reflect those who have not been found since the fire. They are now considered Missing Presumed Dead," murmured Clarke.

Jackson nodded.

Outside was a greying wasteland. The wet, white salvation that fallen to lay thick sheets upon the land had been polluted with every footstep as they churned up charred, sooty remains of the forest. It was as if hell had burned one las time before freezing. Scorched bare trees stood blackened and stark against the sky. Clarke shuddered despite the thick, warm layers she'd buried herself in.

She wasn't surprised to find that Bellamy was already planted in the grey slush to oversee the arrival.

Winter in hell, she thought, wincing at the sight of Lexa's men setting up camp in this tragedy that had once been a great, green forest.

Yet Indra gave no sign she saw the wasteland, ordering the peacekeeping force about without a single cringe. Their orders were to protect the mountain with their lives.

All of them were going to die anyway.

Her stomach rolled, making her regret her lunch.

More men were still arriving, coming into sight as they came from south of the mountain, and Clarke's eyes widened as she saw that the last of them came leading animals. Cows, she knew, and horses, but she wasn't sure about some of the others. Sheep, and goats, she guessed. There were woven baskets, bound shut with leather straps, from which alarming shrieks admitted, and she hoped that they contained nothing more unusual than chickens.

The command center was dimly lit by the glow from the screens that filled it, and a couple small table lamps. The door was firmly closed. Locked.

"You were right," announced Sinclair grimly.

"The airlocks aren't 100%," Raven concluded immediately.

Sinclair nodded.

"Clarke told us there was an issue somewhere with radiation leaking," reminded Wick.

"Yea, but-" began Raven.

"She's right. The airlocks aren't 100% effective. I'm guessing it's wear and tear from age, at this point-"

"But the Ark's just as old, and our airlocks were functioning fine," argued Raven.

"Most of them," conceded Sinclair.

"Some were permanently sealed off," added Wick.

"Also, Mt. Weather wasn't stocked with engineers when the Catalyst hit, unlike the Ark. Both societies carefully passed down essential knowledge and training, but Mt. Weather started off on worse footing to begin with," explained Sinclair tiredly.

"So what does this mean? Can we not survive here during Praimfaya?" demanded Raven.

Sinclair shook his head roughly. "No, I mean, yes, we can. As long as the doors are sealed prior to reaching catastrophic radiation levels, and the doors and vents are kept sealed until radiation levels reach safe zones again," he explained.

"So no trips out? That's all?" asked Wick.

Sinclair nodded. "But considering the severity of the leaks, this is non-negotiable. Levels outside will be catastrophic for at least a year, and won't even lessen to severely dangerous until year three. You can't risk the sanctuary on the flip of a switch,"

"We've got to rig them permanently closed," realized Raven, her face falling.

"Semi-permanently," corrected her mentor.

"How serious?" Wick asked.

"Locks tied to radiation level monitors, 72hr waiting periods, shared-responsibility access codes, lock-down protocols, 24/7 guards and surveillance-" recommended Sinclair.

"Osterhagen Key-level of serious," murmured Raven.

"You two, this bunker is your baby. Those doors, and the vents, can not be left vulnerable at any cost,"

Wick's usual grin was nowhere to be seen, and Raven's mouth was pursed up tightly as they agreed.

"The main door should be rigged ASAP,-"

"Leaving just the tunnel entrance,"

"I'll brief Clarke," announced Sinclair.

Raven and Wick exchanged a look. "Miller, and Bellamy, too,"

 _ **63 days till the end**_

Before the assembled dining hall, which had for the time being been stripped of all ornamentation, Clarke stood.

"Adviser Nathan Miller kom Skaikru," she began formally, looking to where Miller sat, right at her side.

He coughed, rising to his feet, with a frown.

"I hereby remand command of Mount Weather Sanctuary, and the Clan of Skaikru, to you, until my return," her formal words came from the old change of command ceremonies, simply shortened.

With the bunker in question, there could be no doubt who she was leaving it's concern to. She held out her hand, offering the presidential keycard to him.

Obviously he hadn't ever watched those old videos. Maybe that was just one of Theolonious'... quirks. Had only she and Wells grown up watching the historic ceremonies? Miller stared at her, face blank and frozen, then looked down at her extended hand. He coughed again, and slowly accepted the key card. Only nodding, he kept his face blank even when she smiled at him. Seated only feet away, Orion was whispering to Reese, as he watched, and tried to explain to her what was happening.

"I trust you, Miller, to do what needs to be done," she offered.

"May we meet again,"

She threw her arms around him, smiling when he caught her, and wrapped her tightly.

"How am I supposed to sleep, huh?" he teased, squeezing her.

"At least you won't wake up with my hair in your mouth," she shot back at him, as she stepped away with a grin.

Snorting, he lifted one shoulder wryly.

"Hurry back anyway,"

Attention drifted from them, as Monroe stubbornly climbed to her feet, accepting a bag of antibiotics from Jackson, and hugging Miller too, Cade on her heels, accepting the warning from Miller to look after her. There was Charlotte, springing from her own chair to rush towards one of the Trikru girls. In a flash, she had her arms wrapped around Tris, the pair whispering urgently to each other, and Sinclair, Raven, and Wick were having a quiet last conversation, heads bent close. Jasper was fidgeting with his backpack, waiting impatiently, inching towards the dining hall's doors.

"Alright, come on, get out of here or miss your ride to Polis!" Bellamy barked at last, standing beside the doors, arms closed impatiently across his chest.

Murmuring continued, farewells and instructions, and warnings, but those departing began to meander towards the doors at last.

"Let's go!" Bellamy repeated, glaring at the stragglers, mostly Clarke.

Her last sweep of the hall was lingering, nodding and smiling wanly as she looked around. Passing by the tense figure of Bellamy, she swept out through the doors at last, reluctant, and looking over her shoulder.

All eyes fell upon him the moment Clarke's golden head had vanished from view.

Miller stood until the dining hall doors closed.

At first loud, the footsteps they could hear from the hallway died off too soon. Nathan Miller knew he could call Clarke back and she'd come running. He could've convinced her to let him go in her place. Maybe he would've... if not for the damned way plans kept changing. Every time they got caught up in one thing, another hit them upside the head from the back. Earth was doing it's best to kill them all, and Clarke was better at balancing whatever was thrown at them.

So he stood there. Everyone watching him. Let her go.

It was all on him until she made it back again. .

This was going to take some getting used to. Nearly fifty Trikru after all the ones that Gaia had sent away to "recover in the fresh air" of other villages, a solid hundred Floukru, and nearly all that was left of Skaikru plus the half-dozen Arkadian defectors. It wasn't quite two hundred altogether, but to Nathan Miller, feeling the mantle of responsibility settle uncomfortably across his shoulders, it felt like _everything._


	15. Way Down We Go

AN: So I wasn't actually done smoothing this out, but it's been like a month and the next two weeks are going to be insane sooo here we go. I hope it's worth it. This chapter is one I've been looking forward to FOREVER. Please let me know how you like it

Chapter 15

 **Way Down We Go** \- Kaleo

 _~~~ 63 days till the end ~~~_

Following Monroe out, Clarke firmly shut the door into the tunnel behind her. Leaving Mount Weather felt freeing in a way Clarke tried not to analyze. If she did, she might have to admit, to herself at least, that Miller probably could have handled this trip while she remained instead.

The sun was bright and warming the land. The lot of them packed into tight quarters of the rover.

Since the morning yesterday, snow around the mountain had begun to melt. This left the ground a slushy mess, and the rover groaned struggling through the thickest patches. On the uneven horse beaten paths, the rover was jarring them against each other. The paths that had hardly been wide enough for the rover had been widened by the destruction, but left cluttered. Clarke cringed at the crunch of debris beneath the tires. Every bump into Sinclair on her right, and Bellamy on her left, made her miss her little mare more.

Stark, blackened trees rose high and thin towards the sky. Ashy, gray weeping drifts covered the ground. The land was altered beyond belief. Without the coordinates, not even Clarke was certain she found the way.

Last night, Caliban and Yulian had departed, tugging along her and Charlotte's horses behind theirs in order to be waiting for their arrival in the rover. Making sure Sinclair made it safely to Second Dawn was critical for the entire bunker's survival. Something she could not, would not, delegate. The speed of the rover, combined with this being a poor time for the older man to learn how to ride, and the reported unease of the territory made it worth forgoing Trikru escort. Yet sitting in the middle of the front seat, sliding and falling between the two men like a ball every few minutes wasn't an easier journey, in Clarke's opinion. In the back of the rover, Charlotte was crammed in with the still pale Monroe, Jasper clutching the bundled up book of records in his lap, and the wide-eyed Cade, and half a dozen good size bags, plus a massive box of medical supplies Jackson had sent for Second Dawn's med bay.

The sun had been bright, but as they'd driven, it had become a dim, cloudy morning. The moment Bellamy threw the rover into park, the occupants began bailing out for the first pit stop. Climbing out of the passenger side to put some space between Bellamy and herself, Clarke stretched, and yawned. There was a heavy feel to the air threatening a storm to come. She leaned back against the rover as Charlotte led Monroe off into the woods, and heard the sound of Bellamy directing the others beyond the treeline in the opposite direction. As they scattered, Clarke eyed the sky.

The black rain had begun, in their region, just 11 days before the Death Wave actually came, months earlier than first predicted. So with 63 days till, it was much too soon. Clarke knew that.

She really did.

But she watched the sky anyway. Waiting. Would the rain even sting her now? She could not quite shake the foreboding sensation of cold sweat.

The rest began tromping back towards the rover... bringing with them something else for her to focus on.

"Cade, you're up front this time!" Clarke said.

"Sure, Clarke," replied the boy.

Tanned as darkly brown now as many of the nuts they ate in camp, Cade with his big brown eyes and red tinted brown hair that stuck up in the mornings, could have been Earth-born, he'd taken to the ground so well. Clarke hardly remembered him from before. Just a face in the crowd at camp, and dead long ago. He'd be a good representative of Skaikru in Second Dawn. He perked up when she grinned at him, but wilted at a glare from Bellamy.

"Stop scaring the children," she grunted.

 _Polis_

Ambling away from the city limits, there was a covered wagon pulled by two, thick horses, followed by a pair of riders. Frowning, Bellamy jerked the rover to a stop. When the jerky vehicle passed by, Clarke tried to get a look into the wagon, but didn't see much beyond a cluster of people. The riders, though, turned out to be an older man, and girl not much older than Charlotte, who kept their eyes upon the rover as long as they could.

Entering the capital through the overgrown borders, Clarke and Bellamy led the way. As the greenery gave way what was revealed was the city, but altered.

For Sinclair, Jasper, and Cade, it was their first view of Polis. Their eyes swept around amazed by the grim vastness. The soaring tower surrounded by concrete building by the dozens, laid out in planned blocks.

"You all should've seen it before the fire," Monroe said.

The rest saw only the changes.

The smell reminded them of the ravished forest, but it was different too. Foul. Rotting wood, spoiled food, stinking fear.

Still wet heaps of ashes, blackened wood, and scorched remains of cloth of many kinds where market stalls had stood.

No one appeared to notice them. They'd been brushed back out of the main through-ways haphazardly- leaving piles and trails everywhere.

The square was devoid of life.

In the streets, and the alleys, and the square, there were no children running about as reckless as the feral dogs. There were few children to be seen at all. Some about Charlotte's age hurried by, eyes shifty and on their guard.

From within the buildings crying could be heard, but no laughter. No dulcet t tones of gossip filling the air. All those had vanished leaving only the sounds of work happening out of sight. The populace that had lived much of their days out in the open had retreated inside.

Beside the back wall, beyond the bunker's trapdoor, lay a pallet. Neatly folded blankets, and a tattered crimson velvet cloak laid on top of it.

Lexa's mouth pursed when Clarke's eyes fell upon it.

"Polis is unstable," she conceded, "with the fires. Azgeda... the rumors of what is to come."

The commander's voice was curt, and pitched low, even as she strode forwards and unlocked the door, opening it for Clarke, and standing aside.

"Aren't you coming?" Clarke asked.

Lexa shook her head very slightly.

"Not until the end," she replied.

Second Dawn seemed darker, and colder. Leaving Lexa topside, Clarke led the way. Sinclair followed eagerly, but Monroe, Cade, and Jasper descended the ladder with ginger steps. Charlotte and Bellamy brought up the rear, but Bellamy quickly branched off to search for Octavia. He went stomping off without a word to them. Charlotte then broke off with Monroe and Cade to show them around, and then it was just Clarke, Sinclair, and Jasper looking for Monty.

"Twelve hundred capacity, but the plan was no more than a thousand so we could bring in animals," Clarke explained.

"What kind of animals?" Sinclair's expression hinted at uncertainty.

"Chickens, and goats. Delfikru was talking about bringing in some beehives," Clarke offered, "Mount Weather is holding the larger animals- horses, cattle, sheep, pigs,"

In the argo farm, they found Monty, predictably. He was bent over a table, expression taunt, with Harper hovering around him.

His face lit up at the sight of them, and he bounced over to hug first Sinclair.

"Thank all the stars you made it," he blurted out, "this place in insane," even as he moved to hug Jasper, and finally Clarke, though he kept talking all the while.

"There's no way we can keep this place running for five years with just us. I need a dozen people in Argo, and same in mech and engineering. Arkadia has got to get in here fast,"

Clarke swallowed hard, ignoring how Sinclair ducked his head.

"About that... there is some kind of... miscommunication issue ongoing,"

Monty's face crumbled, and his shoulders fell forwards. His arms crossed over his chest as he shook his head. Harper wrapped an arm around him, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

"I can't run Argo alone," he whispered.

The cafeteria was crammed with grounders awkwardly perched at the tables. There was an electric restlessness thrumming in the air above the muted conversations, the tapping boots, and the shifting of kids sprawled across the ground beneath their parent's feet.

Bellamy stalked the perimeter, but Octavia wasn't there.

The low ceiling, dimly lit gymnasium had been rearranged since his last venture inside. The dozen clunky, odd machines had been shoved close together into one corner.

Now targets lined the wall near them. Knives were soaring towards them, and sticking every time.

In the middle of the room a large mat of skins stitched together was taking up plenty of room. Four grounders, stripped down to their pants, were sparring, with a half dozen or so circled around watching.

The trio of punching bags were another crowded spot. Each was being shared by a pair punching it back and forth between them. More grounders were on the ground, or on mats, going through conditioning routines that didn't look too different from what the guard was taught on the Ark. There were a few dark haired grounder girls, but not Octavia.

Bellamy scanned the room again, until he spotted a familiar face at the punching bags. He strode towards them.

"Where's Octavia?" Bellamy demanded.

Lincoln landed another perfect blow upon the bag, before throwing Bellamy a second of unimpressed stare, and still meeting the return swing of the bag with ease.

"The office above the meeting hall," he grunted.

He found the double doors opened propped open. Bellamy paused, swallowing.

All he could hear was the scratching of a pen.

Moving forward, he made the corner and in the doorway, froze.

There was his sister.

Octavia Blake, his little sister, the girl from the Ark, the girl from Factory.

Not the grounder he had to watch parading around, but the girl he'd raised. Hidden. Protected. Failed.

Her hair was loose behind her, and glossy. Wet, he realized. She was wearing a navy sweater, simple and plain enough he couldn't tell it's origins. Her face clean. Freshly scrubbed.

She titled her gaze up to pin him in place just as he'd realized his feet were moving forwards without permission. One dark brow rose.

"Bellamy?" she prompted.

He cleared his throat.

"Got Sinclair here. Monroe, Jasper, and Cade are staying too," he offered, running a hand through his hair. He discovered the layer of dust from driving with the windows down the whole way. He'd showered last night, but another one was sounding good already.

"Good," she nodded, her eyes already flicking down to the papers strewn across the desk.

Scoffing, Bellamy's eyes widened.

"That's it?" Bellamy asked.

His sister looked back up at him. Her mouth pursed, and brows both rose.

She looked so much like their mother, disapproving, impatient.

"That's all you have to say to me?" he threw at her, and she stood up, slowly unfolding, her chin edging up to glare at him. Dropped her pen to the table.

"What do you want from me?" she snapped back, fists clenching before she crossed her arms over the simple sweater.

"There was a fire, and you didn't come!" roared Bellamy.

Octavia glared, but her hard face flickered faintly beneath the dim greenish light.

"Someone had to stay. We can't lose Second Dawn,"

"Are you coming back with me now?"

"My place is here. I'm going to lead our people in here through Praimfaya,"

"And do I get a say? Do I get to decide my place is here with you?"

"Go, Bellamy. Go and do what needs to be done," Octavia said.

"So we'll talk to Raven. See if there's anyone she can send," decided Monty.

"The fire... Monty, we lost a lot... a lot of our people. I know Mary's Argo, but she needs to be in Mt. Weather with Jackson, and she's going to working there," Clarke cautioned.

Bellamy strode forwards, forcing their circle to open as Monty and Jasper jumped, not having noticed his return behind their backs.

"Radio Raven. Tell her to get a half dozen kids picked out and packed. I'm on my way. Three and a half hours, max," he ordered, already turning away from them.

"Bellamy, you don't have to rush," Clarke began.

He swiveled on his heel, sneering.

"It needs to be done," he barked, and she faltered in the face of his impatience.

"It's a three hour trip without stops each way. I can bring a half-dozen by this afternoon, head back and have another six here by noon tomorrow," Bellamy announced.

Costia watched as Charlotte smeared the slick greenish paste across Clarke's shoulder. Monty beamed as he too watched. Costia couldn't refrain from smiling at his good cheer- the first she'd seen from the Skaikru boy since they'd all taken refuge in the sanctuary.

After Clarke, Jasper, Cade, and Charlotte all followed. With a furrowed brow and hesitant fingers, Clarke returned the favor across Monty's back.

"It gets easier," he promised, wincing.

"Don't make me hold you down," threatened Harper.

"Oh, no, please!" Monty grinned.

"Sinclair, you're next!" crowed Jasper.

The older man sat, bemused, in the loose circle, trying the some of the fried breads and grilled meats from the communal platter between them. He looked around the group after Jasper's taunt.

Clarke took pity, laughter welling up unexpectedly from her. "You don't have to", she assured Sinclair.

"Yes, he does! All of us in here have it!" joked Wells.

"Wick and Raven were telling me about some concerns over the tower's stability," he changed the subject.

"True, but we've got some ideas about that," conceded Monty.

"Well, I can tell you from one look that reinforcing that is not an option," Sinclair announced gravely.

"Right, yea, so we were thinking about a 4-prong approach. Build a tunnel over the door leading out, reinforce the temple itself, reseal the bunker and seal off the entry chamber, and a controlled demolition of the tower to try to bring it down opposite the temple," Monty explained quickly.

Sinclair raised a brow, "We're going to need-"

"They left behind some plans, and supplies from the lab," added Harper.

"That changes things," Sinclair grinned.

"See, we think the possible impact of the tower debris upon the roof weakening the seals is the primary..."

Clarke sighed. Her whole body eased as she listened to Monty and Sinclair going off too deep for her to follow. Second Dawn was in the best of hands.

"We'll wait as long as possible for the demo because the bunker is going to need to be rigged shut beforehand," Sinclair mused.

"Right, and sealing off the entry is going to be a major project. There's an airlock, right, but it's old, and if the tower does fall on top..."

"Potentially catastrophic,"

"Wait, does this mean someone has to stay-"

"No, we can set timers to blow the tower," assured Monty.

The day passed, and Clarke, like everyone else, kept busy. There was so much to be done.

Though the commander had abandoned the tower, there was still many flitting about it. Everything small enough to fit through the trapdoor, and deemed useful was being carried down to the second floor. Not until darkness fell, and quiet settled upon Polis would it would moved to the temple. In the bustle, Clarke spotted Costia with a small army of children under her command. The lot appeared to be emptying the tower, from the highest floor down, of healers supplies. Long swaths of unbleached cloth, leather bags and rolls of all shapes, woven, lid covered, tied baskets, bundles of fresh and dried plants. Clarke knew she ought to offer to her assistance, but instead she slipped into the elevator after instructing the overseer to raise her to the level of the novitiates quarters.

From the empty piles on the second floor, she'd taken two of the largest bags she'd could dig out. The novitiates quarters were eerily silent.

Aden's room was just as she remembered it. Looking around, she made a slow circle. The trunk that had set beside Aden's bed, covered in random bits, was missing. Otherwise, the messy room showed the realm of a boy who'd merely gone down for breakfast minutes and would soon return. It must have looked like this the night he laid down to sleep with the other novitiates the night before his conclave, and never woke again. The night Ontari had threatened Clarke, and Aden, dear, noble Aden had lunged to protect her. As Lexa would have wanted, because he loved Lexa, and she'd asked him to. Clarke laid the bags down on his unmade bed. Her eyes burned. Clarke had failed to protect him in turn. Blinking hastily, she turned to look at his bookshelf. This time he was safe. Already holed up in the bunker, unhappily, but safe. His room wouldn't be here when he was freed, but at least he will have the chance find another home, another room to spread out his books and clothes and trinkets.

In the soft sheets from his bed, Clarke wrapped the fragile collection of books. When she'd filled those, the thinnest of the blankets worked well. After that, she moved to the wardrobe. The doors had been left open in the rush when servants had collected clothes to bring down to the bunker. There was still plenty left. Before, it must have been full to bursting. She pulled out what seemed to be the nicest. Tunics in blues and reds, snug shirts in the unbleached natural colors, and sweaters, soft wool. These too, she cushioned his precious books with.

Below the top shelves, where the ancient literary pieces had stood, she found cruder works. Opening one with careful fingers, she grinned. She'd never really seen the grounder's language written, beyond a handful of words, and she flipped through the pages eagerly. It must be a Delfikru creation, she realized. Only once she'd emptied the shelves did she heave up one of the bags, and promptly ease it back down to the bed, squeaking at the unexpected weight.

"Genius, books are small, how heavy could they be?" she muttered to herself. Rubbed the pained deltoid muscle regretfully. Her laugh at herself was startling in the silent wing.

She blew out a quick breathe, and eased first one, then the other, to the ground. Stopped to stare down at them. She managed a few steps with the first before she had to set it down again. The door, much less the elevator, looked much too far.

"Beaten by a satchel," she groaned.

So she grabbed a hold of a strap with two hands, and heaved to pull it instead.

A soft rustling creak from within the bag froze her.

Clarke dropped the strap.

She tried to sling it onto her shoulder, and nearly went heels over head with the momentum, gasping as she fought to get her balance.

"Ugh," Clarke plopped down beside the bags. Obviously she was going to have to get someone else to carry these down. Yet Aden had said that most clans scorned English writing. Truthfully, she didn't know how much of a prejudice it was. With the ban against personal, and frivolous items, in Second Dawn, she wasn't sure if this would cause a problem. They had to be saved, though.

Sitting on the floor, Clarke considered waiting till Bellamy returned and having him carry them down. Remembering the dark scowls he'd been throwing around, more and more as Praimfaya loomed, she gave that up as a bad job. Wells, though, she'd ask Wells. After she grabbed another bag or two and divided them up some more at least so she could manage to help him.

While she was sitting on the rusty red rug, thinking it over, she was facing Aden's bed. The floor beneath it was scattered with socks, balled up pieces of paper, and what looked suspiciously like bowls, but staring absently at the bed formed a burst of an idea in her head. She leapt up and headed for it. Sticking her hand beneath the mattress, she rummaged around...

"Ha!" Clarke crowed.

Dragging whatever it was tot he edge of the bed, she tugged it out. Beamed. The thin, pale leather bag was hardly bigger than one of the books. Branded into the surface was the mark of the Delphi people. Of Aden's clan. Tied shut with a raged, green dyed string, she did not open it. Instead, she squeezed it into the lighter of the two bags, and moved back tot he bed again. There was something else under there that she couldn't quite reach. Bending her knees, Clarke lifted the mattress. Pushed it back towards the wall till the mattress leaned against it completely. She grinned. Clearly, Aden had been trying to hide this. At least she could outsmart a thirteen year old, she laughed. The mattress bugled in the center. Flicking a knife from her belt, Clarke made a neat incision. Right through the messy, lopsided stitches. Out she pulled the contraband, and looked it over. Wrapped in a shawl that bleached nearly white were a bundle of letters. These too, she didn't open, but slipped into the bags, grinning. Hopefully this would be a good surprise. Letting the mattress fall back onto the frame, she began to scour the room from top to bottom, looking for any other small thing she might could sneak in to Aden.

"I don't think anyone is sleeping down there..." offered Clarke as she climbed out of the bunker, and closed it up behind her.

Her sword, and her armor laid on the pallet in wait, but Lexa sat with her back against the wall and her legs neatly folded.

Clarke offered her a smile, and took a spot on the wall not too far away.

Lexa nodded, keeping her eyes on the door on the opposite wall.

"Since the fire, they must work through the darkness to lessen our audience," she murmured.

"Where is everybody going?" Clarke asked.

The commander finally blinked, and inhaled deeply. Calming.

"My army has dispersed under the hand of the Order of the Flame. They will bring the chosen to safety at any cost. Once they return... they will restocking and moving out again. The soldiers will establish a full blockade against the ice nation."

Clarke waited.

"How long is it going to take?"

"Ten days until the bulk of the army return, I suspect. Children are not easy to move en masse,"

"But others are leaving. I've seen them. Walking, and piling into wagons,"

"The civilians... some will follow the army to the border and are preparing for this. Keep the soldiers fed, clothed, armed, healthy enough to fight. But... I have... the rest of the city is evacuating. South,"

"Many have already left," continued Lexa, her eyes downcast.

"I'm sorry. I know... I know you are losing so many," Clarke murmured.

The radio on Clarke's hip crackled to life, and she yanked it from it's holder. In the dim light, Lexa leaned closer.

"Pike's in Arkadia," whispered Clarke.

"Sixty of my men left with more than a dozen wagons this morning heading there to bring your mother's people in," breathed Lexa.

 _Mount Weather main command center_

Wick recognized that hurried stomping, and the swishing of a ponytail against her red bomber jacket.

Looking up, he grinned, "Finally!".

That was all it took to annoy her, but the frown she gave him was far from her worst. So he shrugged it off easily.

"Something's up," she blurted out, leaning back against the door she'd just closed.

Sitting up in his chair, and letting his pencil fall onto the pile of papers, Wick offered her his full attention.

"First Abby radios looking for Clarke, then Clarke radios looking for Bellamy. Nobody wants to tell me anything." grumbled Raven, her tone seething, but her forehead creased.

"So what's Bellamy doing now?" asked Wick as he absorbed that.

Raven scoffed, and Wick's gut clenched.

"You saw him!" she reminded, standing up straight, and purposefully stomping over to another desk.

She dropped into it.

"I don't even know when the last time he actually slept was. We don't need the rover crashed just because he killed himself trying to get to Clarke."

Wick expelled a harsh breathe. Looking down at the hard copy final check lists, he picked up his pencil again. Just to tap it against the desk. Raven yanked her own copies from a folder to review. The papers rustled noisily as she roughly flipped through the lot.

He cleared his throat.

"Ok, so you think something's wrong, but you didn't pass the message on to Bellamy," he summarized.

"There was no message!" corrected Raven, sharp. "Clarke just wanted to talk to Bellamy."

"And you said...?"

"The truth. That he was dead on his feet and already passed out."

Dropping his pencil again, he didn't notice when the tip broke. Instead he rubbed his hands over his face, and left them there, leaning forwards on his elbows.

When he spoke again, his voice was muffled. It didn't disguise the weariness. "Miller is gonna be here in 40 minutes expecting us to be ready to lock-down the main seals. Let's go over this again," he conceded.

"If it was critical, she'd have told me." continued Raven. Her fingers clenched on the stack of checklists.

"Would she?" wondered Wick out loud, but he stood up anyway, grabbing his own lists, and stretching out his shoulders.

When he'd engineered the massacre of this bunker, for Raven's sake, in Clarke's name, in memory of a good man, Wick had no clue he'd end up living there ensconced in all those memories. Blistering faces, screaming women bleeding in hallways, kids chained to walls, and blood slicking the floor. If he failed, radiation would flood through Mount Weather again but this time it'd be his own people dying on the floor. The irony of it made him chuckle.

Raven shivered at the bitter sound.

 _The Temple of the Order of the Flame_

"The rover's not an option. Bellamy's in no shape to drive, Miller is overseeing the lock-down, Raven doesn't know the way, and no one else can drive the rover, much less in the dark," explained Clarke flatly.

Lexa meet her words stoically. "It will be war if Pike interferes."

"If I leave now, could I outpace them?"

Lexa uncurled from her mediation pose, and rose to her feet swiftly.

"If you ride without stopping, and take my fastest horses, yes," she swore, heading for the door and opened it to snap out commands to the waiting sentries, she returned to Clarke, "None of them have traveled the path before. A wagon doubles a journey's time, and they'll have stopped by sunset,"

"If Octavia goes-"

The commander's frown deepened, and she sighed.

"You have to convince her not- Clarke pleaded.

"Take Caliban, and go, Now!" Lexa ordered.

"Don't let the doors close with you on the wrong side," Clarke's final words came with only the briefest look back.

The commander stood, feet shoulder-width apart, beside the bunker's only door. A guardian who couldn't, wouldn't, leave her post.

Yulian had all four horses saddled by the time Clarke and Charlotte left the safety of the temple. Even this late, the city was uncomfortably awake. It took less than twenty minutes for them to regroup in the stables behind the tower. They were getting quicker about preparing to leave on a moment's notice.

Clarke swung onto her little mare, smiling at Caliban once he'd mounted, stiffer but still swiftly, onto his own.

"The honor of riding with you only grows, Prisa,"

She snorted at his words, which though as gruff as always, she was fairly certain were meant teasingly.

"I'm grateful to have you beside me,"

 _Second Dawn bunker_

Soon they would need to rise. Join the nightly crews to carry supplies down, and guarding the entire block around the temple to keep the work from being seen.

Together they quietly ignored it a bit longer.

The bunk room emptied, and finally they had it to themselves.

They laid together in in the bunk Lincoln had claimed. She'd thrown her pack up on the upper bunk above his, but draped herself over her love languidly to sleep intertwined.

Whether the fancy, curling iron frame bed of hers in the tower, or the pallet in the barracks that had been his, or here, now, sharing a narrow mattress meant for one, she was home in his arms.

Octavia rested her head on his shoulder, and he held her securely.

"If you asked me to marry you, I would say yes. Not because of the alliance. Or Indra, or Trikru, or the commander, or the damn princess wanna-be," she murmured, sleepy, and honest, and home, with him.

"Then why?" rumbled Lincoln, far too quiet for neighbors to overhear. Their lovemaking was probably overheard, but this was far more private.

"Because I love you, even if you don't love me now," her words were soft, slow, and she breathed out a yawn at the end.

"Octavia kom Skaikru, I love you. When it started, I do not know. But here you are, and I would stay as long as you allow." he rumbled.

"Stay with me, Lincoln," she agreed, nuzzling even closer, and he tightened his hold.

Waking up more, Octavia moved over him, so that she could lean down into a cascade of kisses, each deeper and longer than the last.

Until she broke apart, moving to whisper into his ear. "Let's get married. It's a good deal after all. I get _you,"_

Pulling her back down to lavish her neck, moving his lips against her soft, so warm skin. "You have me already."

She whined low in her throat, throwing her head back, as his mouth found a sensitive place just behind her ear.

"Anything you want, I will fight for," Lincoln swore, looking up at her, steady and brave, at the girl that he was sure was half-heaven, half-terror. "If you wish to, we will marry,"

He wasn't at all prepared for, when she descended upon him again, kissing him with the deepest desperation, for tears to wet her own cheeks, and his when they brushed together.

 _62 days till the end._

 _Nearly dawn_

Moonlight lit the forest, and the torch Yulian still carried, tended to carefully through the night, helped. Arkadia wasn't in sight yet. Here the trees were too thick, Clarke wasn't even sure what side of the camp they were coming up on.

At her side, the gruff man tensed up. The back of her neck prickled, and Clarke repressed the urge to spin in place, searching for the eyes she felt upon her. The urge swelled higher when a whisper echoed through her mind- "Everything about this screams recipe for disaster." muttered John bitterly.

In the heartbeat it took her to remember when Murphy had said that, she saw Caliban's gaze rest upon her meaningfully.

"Don't look for them. If they are mere scouts, then they will act only if spotted." murmured the man barely above a whisper.

"And if they aren't scouts?" whispered Clarke in return.

His mouth tightened unpleasantly.

"Then you move swiftly, without looking back."

Clarke opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly he'd tensed again, before smirking at her smugly.

"Trikru will welcome you with honor, prisa." he assured her firmly, and Clarke blinked only once before she realized that he was, instead of letting his eyes rove lingeringly over her as it appeared, discretely checking out the surrounding area.

"I _am_ considering your words, I promise." returned Clarke gently, trying for sweet, but feeling like she fell far short. It had been so long since she'd felt... _sweet. S_ oftness had been sentenced, and beaten, and burned, out of her until nothing seemed to be left of it. Caliban's eyes locked on hers for only a slight pause, but his wide grin in answer was a little more honest than the smirk he'd been presenting.

The first arrow came out of nowhere, striking Yulian, just below his neck, toppling him from his mount, a glazed look of confusion as he wavered backwards, and Caliban roared in fury.

It was coming from the left, Caliban between her and the attackers, but Charlotte was just behind him.

Still holding the horse's reins loosely, Clarke swung her rifle around to her front and looked through the sight, but despite the volley of arrows, the archers must have retreated because she couldn't spot them.

The mare reared beneath her, Clarke dropping the rifle, feeling the weight of it thud against the strap as she desperately gripping at the saddle. A war cry rose from out of sight, and the horse's feet hit the ground.

"Go!" he roared.

Clarke looked over her shoulder to Charlotte, and urged her to follow. She rammed her boots into the horse's soft belly, and the panicking mare shot forwards. With a sharp lean and pull of the reins, Clarke steered off the pale trail and deeper into the trees at their side, A straighter shot towards Arkadia's gate if she was guessing right. Crunching leaves in the evergreens above made both girls' heads swivel to search for the disturbance, but Clarke screamed, terrified and _caught,_ something, someone, heavy landed half on her horse's back behind her, and dragged her down to the branch strewn ground with him. The horse cried out, and hooves flew, catching Clarke's knee as she went down.

They grappled, Clarke screaming without cease, fighting, trying to catch hold of her rifle, of her handgun, her sword, anything, but he got her on her back and held her hard down. But she bit his dirty fingers, and jerked her head away, avoiding the gag he'd tried to force into her mouth. She looked into the crystal blue, hateful eyes, his beard brushing her face, as the gag turned into a noose, tightening around her throat where it'd slipped.

Charlotte's high piercing shrieks were all she could hear. Stars burst before her eyes. The foulness the half-dried mud that covered the man pressing her down all she could smell. As her airway failed, her stings eyes poured.

A shot roared, and then another, and brilliant red splattered, the man's full weight collapsed onto Clarke, bending one arm, and one leg back into impossible stretch, but the noose around her neck went slack.

"Clarke?" cried Charlotte.

Beneath the dead man, Clarke lay there, staring into the bloodshot blue eyes, his bearded face fallen onto hers.

When she cringed away, his head fell onto her shoulder, one of his arms still wrapped under her. Wiping blood, black and red mixing, from her face weakly with the one hand she could free, she panted. Trying to appease her starved, burning lungs. Clarke shoved at the body, blinking away the tears and the sweat, and the blood in her eyes. Charlotte took hold of the dead man by one ankle, and heaved. As she tried to drag him off, Clarke's vision began to clear. Sounds trickled back into her ears- heavy footsteps, yelling, Caliban, Yulian... must still be fighting.

"We've got to get to Arkadia," croaked Clarke, pushing again at the dead man.

She rocked her body, crying from the pain of it, dumping him from her, and crawled backwards away. Charlotte's hands appeared, grasping at Clarke's forearms, and helping her stand. That first step towards the settlement made her bit down into her lip, tasting blood, falling, Charlotte barely holding her up. Screeching pain rocketed up her leg, Charlotte cried out in fear, but gasped, looking back. Her sleek, chestnut gelding, stood, frozen, his reins on the ground, and at her whistle, he crept forwards, ears slicked back to his head. He sidled up to them warily.

"C'mon, Clarke, c'mon," she begged.

Clarke leaned on her heavy to force her left foot into the stirrup, and grabbed a hold of the saddle to hoist herself up. Crashing through the trees. Her right side couldn't push her up, but Charlotte shoved, Clarke rose, preparing to sling her ignored leg over-

More warriors swarmed from the forest, and Clarke saw the ax rising just barely, jerking away from the horse, falling back, clinging to Charlotte...

"Prisa!" bellowed Caliban. An unhuman scream rose.

They rolled barely rolled away in time. The sleek gelding fell, groaning, then silent.

Sunrise trembled near the treetops to the east.

Clarke finally got a hold of the handgun on her shaking thigh, and missed with the first shot. But the second... the second struck the closest Azgeda in the shoulder, the third lodging in his skull, but the third went wild as the gun was knocked from her hand from behind, and hard arms caught her again.

Two already had Charlotte in their arms, her thin arms being bound behind her back, a gag forced into her mouth as she screamed, as she cursed, kicked, her back arching as she struggled, a thick, bag, her head crammed inside, a second gag tied over it, and she was going to suffocate, Charlotte couldn't breathe, no, they were going to kill her, and Clarke fought to get to her, but then Caliban fell, too,

The Azgeda brought down a blade into his chest, a sickening _sucking,_ evoking a choked scream from Caliban kom Trikru...

And Clarke shrieked, "No! No! Caliban!"

The flat of another sword struck the back of her head dead center. Her cry pierced the air. The dizzy wave of darkness overcame her, and the force threw her forwards onto the ground. Swaying over to lean towards the ground, gagging, Clarke spewed onto the ground, onto her hands, and before it was hardly over, she was falling onto her back, her hair landing half into the vomit. She coughed, again. Tried to clear her throat. Swallow. Gagged, curling upwards, trying to sit up, too weak to do it, just enough to spit out another mouthful before she dropped back, landing on her side at least, cringing as her stomach heaved.

She fell so close to him. Just out of her reach, and far away. The rushing crimson blood pooling onto the old, grayed snow... growing closer to her, creeping into the vomit.

As the blackness overtook Clarke, the last thing she saw was her guard, her ally, her friend, bleeding out, just out of her reach.

Bound tightly with ropes, wrapped in blankets, and those tied too, thrown across the rumps of horses like saddlebags, neither of the girls even felt it. Not even when a third set of ropes was added, securing them to the horses.

Before he swung himself up onto his own mount, dragging the one that held Wanheda, one of the Azgeda noticed a little black piece of tech on the ground.

With a sneer, and only half a thought, he ground the heel of his boots into it, relishing the snapping shatter.


	16. The Other Side

**AN:** Well, the last chapter flopped obviously... I'm REALLY hopeful this chapter goes over better. Please read and review!

 **Chapter 16 – The Other Side**

 _Polis, 62 days till the end_

"It hasn't even been 12hrs yet,"

Wary though she was, Octavia's pronouncement was flat. Stoic.

"Like she'd every ignore the radio!" bellowed her brother.

The crackles of the radio illustrated the distance between them.

"She radioed a half-hour's walk from the gates. Everything was fine. She probably crashed. Just like you did."

Octavia's retort was swift. It was also just as swiftly ignored.

"She's alone, and we can't trust Arkadia"! Bellamy yelled into the radio.

"She's got Caliban, his second, and Charlotte. They're loyal. She's not alone," "And what, you suddenly trust Arkadia?" demanded Bellamy.

The silence stretched. Octavia grit her jaw. "I'll deal with it," she snarled finally.

"What?" O? What are you-" She ignored him, and set down the radio.

Lexa's face was a mask. Listening without a word, she'd taken in the call from Mount Weather.

"He's gonna go if I don't," Octavia spat.

Still, Lexa's face was motionless. The implied threat simmered in the air. "If it was Azgeda-" began the commander.

"I know," Octavia snapped.

"It will be ten days before we can march, if I raised the signal fire tonight," Lexa outlined anyway.

"Which you're not gonna do," hissed Octavia.

"The chosen must be protected. If I recalled my armies, the chosen would be abandoned on the roads far away,"

"We could fill the bunker from the city," Octavia grunted.

"Deal with Arkadia. They may be holding her. If she is not there, I will prepare my army. Once the chosen are inside," Lexa declared.

"Nia could kill her a dozen times over by then,"

"If Nia wants her dead, Clarke could be 12hrs dead by now,"

"Not with a show. Nia doesn't strike me as the discrete type. She wanted you dead in the square with all of Polis watching. Wanheda calls for at least as much theatrics. Kill Wanheda, take her power. What else could Nia want with her?"

Though she turned away, Octavia saw the moment that Lexa's face wavered. But the Skaikru girl also saw it would change nothing. Octavia sneered at the commander's turned cheek, and raised the radio to her lips again.

"O?" Bellamy answered frantically.

"Bring me the rover."

 _Mount Weather, 61 days till the end_

The door thudded shut behind him. A quiet click and beep as the locks engaged. Miller stared blindly straight ahead towards the kitchen. The living area he stood in held no trace of them except a thin, dark blue shirt half-way under one of the sofas. To his left, the two smaller bedrooms and bathroom. To his right, the master suite. All empty. All silent. Kicking off his boots, Nathan threw himself down onto the sofa where he'd been sleeping. The master bed was too big on his own. He'd been waiting for Clarke and Charlotte to get back. Now... He knew his orders. On Earth, to Skaikru and the others who followed her, Clarke's word was law. She was the princess they'd chosen. And she'd told him, Stay. Run things in her absence. She was only supposed to be gone a few days. But Miller didn't sleep beside the princess at night. He didn't keep warm tucked in beside Wanheda. She wasn't just their leader. In the wide blue eyes when he joked around, in the arms that always welcomed him, in the comfort that scooted closer when Earth was too big... In these ways, he knew Clarke couldn't ever be just another leader. And Charlotte... damn. It'd been weeks, or longer, since Miller had been thinking about _orders_ when it came to watching her back. The pint size blonde might snarl like a big dog backed in a corner, but she was still their youngest. She was a kid, and she was theirs, and he didn't need orders to tell him that. Clarke's word was law, and Miller obeyed. He'd lay here like a coward while they died far away in a frozen wasteland because that was her orders. Here she'd left him, here he'd stay. Like a good soldier. Damn her.

 _Arkadia, 60 days till the end_

"She's not here," Bellamy finally admitted. Two days of searching the camp under the thin guise of visiting had been pointless. Nobody had seen Clarke, or nobody would admit to. With the resident's voices muted, and eyes lowered, Arkadia was a tense place these days. Yet Pike was stalking about like a king. Louder and more than any sky-born man with sense ought to be in a new environment. Behind the walls of Arkadia, Pike's courage was running at an all-time high. Abby was pissed not just about Jackson being stolen away, but also the matter of an alleged kidnapping which Bellamy was ardently denying even happened. Octavia was ignoring both. Knowing him far better than he knew her, it was obvious Marcus was on edge. He was a man quite aware that he was dancing on thin ice in every situation he found himself in. Theolonious was occupied in deflecting Pike's growing popularity. It at least was keeping the former chancellor busy. Even the few sullen Arkadians who'd hinted, in whispered tones, of a veiled interest in abandoning their home had not revealed anything useful.

"Doesn't mean she wasn't," Octavia reminded.

"Her mom..." Bellamy shook his head. "Clarke never made it to the gates. Or Abby would know."

Truth was, Octavia had been certain of that before they even hit Arkadia's walls. Ever since they spotted the scenes of an attack in the woods. The butchered horses, the smashed radio, the black blood, and the red, frozen in the thin layers of snow. It wasn't Arkadia's style. Their having the brains to stage an Azgeda attack made even less sense, no matter what she'd told Bellamy. In order to prevent her fool of a brother from heading straight towards the ice nation alone, Octavia had dragged him into Arkadia despite this. She'd radioed Lexa then, and the commander had taken the news quietly. But the chosen hadn't even started arriving yet then. The Arkadian top brass was definitely hiding something, but Octavia was relatively certain it had nothing to do with Clarke. There was the halted reconstruction efforts on the station, but that too did not seem to be the cause of the secretive tension. From her memories, Octavia knew all too well that the station could only support a hundred lives long-term. Same as their number of spots in a much larger sanctuary. This wasn't the secret that made Abby stutter then go on the defensive, thought Octavia. There was something else. Waiting in the woods, Lexa's warriors lingered in impatience for Arkadia's chosen hundred.

Octavia stretched, one long leg extended impossibly far as she bent side-ways. Then the other, and she continued, ignoring her brother's huff.

"We'll leave at first light, but I've got one last objective here-"

"What?" cut in Bellamy.

"Then I'm dropping you at the mountain, and keeping the rover." continued Octavia grimly.

"We've got to rescue her,"

"You tried that, before. Left your post at Mount Weather. You were with her when the news came. The bunker was blown up. Totally destroyed. Nearly fifty people dead. She didn't need rescuing. Was still working for us. Sent you away, and you went, angry."

"This isn't the same thing! You saw those horses. You saw that blood! She didn't go willingly!" he pleaded.

For the third night, Octavia crept on silent feet. The metal of the station had been an adjustment that first night, but by now she made no more noise than a ghost would. On the double mattress of the on-call room's bed, her brother slept far too soundly. Trusting the keypad lock to keep him safe. By now, he ought to know better than to trust anything so greatly as to sink this deeply unaware. There was more than one reason to not share sleeping quarters with him. This was one. The last.

Backwards, Octavia slid from his room, and re-locked it from the outside via keypad. On thin pallets in the gathering hall, most of Arkadia slept. Only a few dozen choose to be outside in leaky tents for the illusion of privacy. Though she maintained a room of her own near the med bay, the last doctor of Arkadia was sleeping in Marcus Kane's private quarters on the other side of the station. By 2am, the station was quiet. By 4am, it was silent. Inside the walls, guards remained on duty throughout the night. Solo, they patrolled through the few rows of tents, along with the interior perimeter of the fence. Inside the station, however, a single guard remained on duty in the gathering hall. Judging by the last two nights, there wouldn't be another patrol of the corridors until after the 7am shift change. Octavia planned to be an hour away, at the very least, by then. Two hours, if things worked out as she meant them to, with a battalion of Lexa's warriors in between Arkadia and herself. There would be no pursuit.

Reaching Pike took scarce minutes. She didn't have to knock. Charles Pike wasn't as paranoid about his access code as he had been in her memories. _0207_ The number Farm Station had landed with. He came awake, quiet and quick, in the brief space between the opening of the door, and the closing of it behind her back. Slept lighter than Bellamy. Far lighter. Azgeda was to thank for that, Octavia assumed. She was still faster. Young, and well-trained by Indra, there was no hesitance as she launched herself in time to catch his wrists. Even with his hands pinned down on the narrow bed beneath him, and him on his back beneath her, his bulk should've tipped the odds a bit.

"Blake! What the hell!" he grunted, attempting to shove her off, but only landing a knee into his chest. He choked on the pain, gasping for breathe.

Soaking in his every quaver of pain and shock, Octavia grinned, showing her teeth wolf-like, and dark eyes glinting. Unfortunately for him, he was a man who relied on a gun.

It was under the bed, within reach.

If he could have only reached out for it.

"Charles Pike, you've been sentenced to death," she whispered.

At his snarl, and increasingly frenzied attempts to throw her off, Octavia only tightened her grasp.

She hummed, saccharine sweet, "for the good of humanity, you see?".

He was still sleeping. Octavia sighed. Deep into slumber like this, motionless, with his brow smoothed out and lashes down against his cheek, she couldn't stoke her anger. Hair dark like their mom's, rumpled across his forehead. Hands open limp against the bed... like this, he didn't look like Charles Pike's right hand man. Like a traitorous coward capable of murdering 300 sleeping allies. Relaxed in sleep, he looked more like the brother she'd known on Factory. Octavia cringed at her own thoughts... He didn't even look like the volatile, unpredictable man that she knew he still was. Her weakness, and Clarke's too. He had to kept at arm's length, Octavia reminded herself. She had to keep enough distance to see him clearly. Can't let him do anything stupid, again. Her brother, her responsibility.

"Wake up, big brother," she called out, leaning against the closed door. It took two more tries, increasingly loud, but she stayed at the door. Adrenaline coursed through her veins still. He woke up blearily. Rubbed his face, groaning. "Up. We've got to walk out of here like nothing's wrong. Now," Octavia barked, patience waning. He swung his face up to her, eyes finally opening, confused and sleepy. "Wait- what _is_ wrong?"

Octavia shut the back doors soundly. Bellamy shifted, awkward, keeping his eyes averted from the stiff, pinched visage of Abby Griffin. "Thanks for the help loading up," Octavia drawled.

"You have to find Clarke-" began the doctor, but Octavia shoved Bellamy towards the drivers seat.

"Just to be clear- we're gonna find Clarke because she's one of us. Not anything to do with you," Octavia bit out.

With a last, uncertain glance, Bellamy swung up into the rover and closed his door.

"You? You need to worry about getting the chosen on the move. Now."

Octavia finished breezily, spinning on her heel and heading for the passenger door. Just before she reached it, Marcus made the corner, startled, and freezing, when she slammed to a stop in front of him.

"Octavia," Marcus' voice was grave.

"You heard me. Get your chosen, and get them to Polis," she repeated.

He nodded heavily. "Find Clarke, but-" he stumbled on his words... "but be careful. Please," His dark eyes lingered on her face.

"I'll see you in Polis, right," she pushed.

Kane nodded. "May we meet again," he implored.

Octavia brushed past him to slid into he Rover beside her brother. As soon as she hit the seat, Bellamy cranked it, but Octavia paused with the door half-shut.

"May we meet again, Marcus," she offered grudgingly.

A grin grew on his face, splitting the short, gray streaked beard as she slammed the door shut. Bellamy carefully maneuvered the Rover through Arkadia as fast as he dared. The gates swung open, creaking and slow, at Marcus' command. They'd made it. The moment they heard the clang of metal on metal signifying the closing gates behind them, Bellamy glared back at it.

"Now tell me what the hell happened," he demanded.

"Drive faster," she countered dryly.

He grunted, but levied his foot down heavier, earning a growl from the engine, and an approving nod from the passenger seat.

"Now," he barked.

"Pike's dead. And now you're going to seal up the mountain, and I'm going home to Lincoln." Bellamy's face flushed, but Octavia stared straight ahead after risking the briefest glance back behind them. His grip on the steering wheel tightened till his fingers blanched. Bellamy's jaw was working side to side, but he fixed his gaze ahead too. Sped up again, to as fast as he dared as they neared the treeline, and the narrow, rough path that would lead them through it.

"If you'd been caught-" he bit out.

"I wasn't," she hissed.

"You could've been-" he snarled back, face reddened and his jaw clenched.

"You don't know half the things I've done to clean up other people's messes. I wasn't accident, and that was no accident,"

"Is this why you came? It wasn't for Clarke at all, was it?"

"Not everything is all about Clarke, but I can have more than one reason to do something," Octavia snapped.

The ride to Mt. Weather was damn near silent, the air heavy with all the things they couldn't say. Yet when they made it there, and the Rover's back was unloaded, she stood still long enough to let her brother tentatively enfold her in his arms. When she allowed it, he tightened, so fast, so hard, Octavia wandered if he was planning on letting her go at all. "Seal the mountain, and don't open it, no matter what," she reminded Bellamy when she finally inched out of his grasp.

Driving the Rover to Polis alone, half-way from the mountain, Octavia threw it into park and climbed out. Up onto the hood, to stretch out for a minute. In Polis, Lincoln was waiting for her. Finally she could face him, with the knowledge that the man who'd made him kneel in mud to be murdered was no longer walking the earth. But her back was tight, and the adrenaline crash a few hours ago had left her restless. Arching her back till she heard more than felt a pop of release, she eased back down flat on the hood for another moment's break. Helios would have made the trip better, though longer, but he was safely tucked into the mountain. After finding Clarke's fast little mare... it wasn't worth the risk. Twisting to one side, and the other, Octavia breathed out deeply, and jumped down. Lincoln was waiting on her. No matter what came, at least Pike was dead. No matter what Arkadia did now, she'd never regret making sure of that man's fate. The tyrant wouldn't get another chance at taking away her love. Would never again lead her brother astray. Besides, Charles Pike had told her Arkadia's secret before he died. That would be Lexa's problem, but she didn't need to know that until Clarke was found. One way or the other. The commander didn't need another distraction. It was time for war. In Clarke's absence, Octavia ruled Skaikru, outside the mountain. It was a burden she didn't want around her neck. Octavia's hand reached up to pull the delicate star necklace from beneath her collar. Squeezing it, she swallowed. She wouldn't let Arkadia stand between them and finding Clarke. Even if it took a war to bring her home. "Just stay alive. I'll see you on the other," Octavia muttered before hiding the necklace again. Out of sight beneath her shirt, not even Bellamy knew she'd found it, tangled into the mane of Clarke's slaughtered mare.

 _Polis, 59 days_

"Trikru, Skaikru, and Floukru were already accounted for. Broadleaf, Shallow Valley, the Lake People, Glowing Forest, Rock Line, and the Delphi have all entered the sanctuary. Now we're only waiting on the plains riders, blue cliffs, the desert clan, and Arkadia." explained Gaia.

"And how far out are they?"

"All should arrive within the next two days- we've got runners relaying messages back. Except Arkadia. They have not yet departed their camp."

"With Pike dead," Lexa nodded at Octavia in acknowledgment, "I would have expected their to have been on the road swiftly,"

"We've waited long enough. Recall your men. Arkadia has forfeited their chance,"

"They're angry over Pike's death,"

"Clarke has waited long enough."

"There's been no news-"

"Except for the ice queen gathering her people in Fron Tenac,"

"Enough!" roared the commander. Her hands slammed down onto the table. Lexa raked her glare across the assembled.

"Arkadia has until sunset tomorrow to allow their chosen to begin their journey. Begin preparing the armies. When the bunker is filled in three days time, the march north commences."

"Commander, there is not time-" began Titus.

"Three days. Hurry," snarled Lexa.

 _56 days_

"The army moves out at first light. We've got scouts trailing up half-way to Azgeda already." Octavia announced.

When he replied, Bellamy's voice was stilted. "I should be going,"

"The commander's only letting her army leave because the bunkers will be closed with all the chosen inside. Wick, Raven, Nathan, you do not open under any circumstances!" reminded Octavia harshly.

Their assurances came, letting Octavia's relax and lean back against Lincoln's chest. He had not made a sound since she'd begun this conversation.

"Arkadia's not inside-" reminded Bellamy.

"That's their fault. I don't know what's going on with them."

"They claim they're retrofitting Arkadia to survive alone," reminded Raven's dubious voice.

The mechanic was leaning over Bellamy's shoulder to get close enough to the radio.

"Yea, and I still say there's something else up," spat Octavia.

"But my dad's ok there, right?" cut in Nathan Miller.

"Yea, he's fine, but he's under Skaikru's banner, now. Arkadia's lost their spots. Replaced by four dozen more chickens and another dozen goats."

"Seriously?" asked Raven.

"No joke. Their bunk-rooms are being outfitted as Farm Station outposts." explained Octavia. "

Azgeda's too, but there's two dozen pigs and sheep each there. Monty's losing his mind trying to figure it out," she added.

 _In the land of ice and snow,_

Nothing made sense. Blurry moments, flashes of time, a dark bag over her head being pulled off only for bitter tea, smelling strongly of _something_ that was definitely not just tea, being forced into her mouth... gagging... Vomiting it up, and her chin being jerked up, held by rough hands, and more of the noxious liquid being poured down her throat... being shaken, and slapped...

Cold sinking deeper into her bones than could be real. Like she was dreaming of the wetlands, but she was dry. At least not that sodden, soaked to her skin kind of wet from then. That she was sure of. Most of the time. Her legs were wet. Weren't they? Even mostly dry, she was frozen. Something stank- plaguing her nose. The quiet, miserable cries she wasn't quite sure were her own or Charlotte's... How she ended up in cruel arms, tight grips, she never knew. Then every time she hit hard packed ground, or rough wood floors, she came alive with gasps. Frantic, she was reaching out, and trying to stand, but her wrists and ankles were always bound.

At times, there was Charlotte's cold skin against her own. The sudden shock of pain as the younger girl dropped on top of her... The searing pains injuries protested... ribs aching, her knee burning, a throbbing across her stomach... Yet more jostling on a horse, unable to make her limbs respond, or even her mouth... the jarring ride that reminded her of laying in the back of the rover, but it was slower, choppier. Time was jolting forwards, with days, or weeks passing. She had no way of knowing.

Dim memories of sounds taunted her. Charlotte, crying. Caliban, dying... Yulian's scream when the arrow pierced his skin. The sounds a horse made when terror mixed with mortal wounding, high and terrible. Her head throbbed. Each uneven breathe jarred her skull. Her lips, scabbed and peeling, burned, stretching at her grimace. Smells washed over her. Water trickled sporadically somewhere, and it made her ears twinge in the gloom. Too far away to offer her much illumination, there was a fire, or a torch. Where she didn't know. The surroundings swam dizzily. A concussion, Clarke realized, waking in a damp, dark, freezing space. There was no one beside her.

Silence. There were no grizzled voices. No footsteps, of man nor animal. No one even breathing near her.

As her eyes adjusted, she couldn't deny any longer that she was alone. Her thoughts skittered around, but one remained above all-

 _Where is Charlotte?_


End file.
